You and Me Both (Rerelease)
by sstarstruck
Summary: [An edited version to prepare for the sequel.] Lena Yavari has plans for her fifth year at Hogwarts, including completing three tasks that will make her a Death Eater; however, falling in love with Draco Malfoy can be quite distracting. Very dark, very mature, more so towards the end... OC/Draco Malfoy OC/Tom Riddle
1. Chapter 1

One.

The slow and delicate process of painting nails distracted Lena Yavari as the lengthy train ride to Hogwarts trudged on, past the endless empty hills, and through the snowy mountains. Of course, her compartment was full. Next to her was Pansy Parkinson, much to Lena's dismay. Crabbe and Goyle sat across from each other, Goyle next to Pansy. Next to Crabbe was Blaise Zabini.

And across from Lena...the one, the only, _Draco Malfoy._

Frustrated with her nails, Lena charmed them dark green with a Slytherin crest. The sun set and the girl watched it apathetically; meanwhile, Draco emerged himself in a new book that was on the required book list for that year. She could make out _Grade Five_ written on it.

The last four years of attending Hogwarts had been pure bliss. Though rather lonely, she must admit: Any rescue from home was a relief. If she hadn't had Draco going through it with her, she didn't know how she would live.

The light in the compartment, compared to the darkness outside, created a mirror effect in the window. The girl's blonde hair lay straight over her shoulders, just reaching her chest. Her head tilted, and her eyes gleamed green. High cheekbones, and a slender frame, Lena was doubtlessly beautiful. Her eyes dropped and she looked across from her at Draco.

He glanced up and met her eyes, as though he had sensed her gaze. He smirked wildly and his gray eyes glinted in the light. She smiled back, but it didn't reach her eyes. She faked it for a second longer, then reached over and took the book from Draco playfully. The chapter he was on was defensive spells. The boy jumped up and snatched it back from Lena.

The girl rose slowly and pounced on Draco, taking the precautions to make sure her nails didn't scratch him.

A minute later, the girl was lying on the floor breathlessly on top of Draco, claiming victory- Though, a voice in the back of her mind assured her that he had let her win; giving the boy a fiery kiss on the neck and bit in gently.

"Get up, you two," Pansy spat acidly, her voice leaking with jealousy, "We're almost at Hogwarts."

Lena shot the other girl a glare and pointlessly brushed herself off. Draco's pale cheeks were cherry red and she could still hear his uneven breath. He was now securing a badge with the letter P on it.

"Gotta get to my Prefect duties," he boasted.

Lena rolled her eyes and punched her best friend playfully. He clutched his arm defensively. "Stop bullying the first years; you embarrass me."

Draco smirked and strode out of the compartment with his trunk floating behind him. The trunk smacked a first-year, who immediately collapsed. Lena waved her wand carelessly and the young Slytherin blinked rapidly as he revived.

* * *

"Lena's mine," Draco growled at Zabini. Catching her name, the girl looked a ways down the table.

Her selective hearing picked out the conversation she wanted to hear among the many at the feast.

"You're not dating her, Malfoy; don't claim her."

"She. Is. Mine."

Something else was said, but Lena failed to catch it as a bird crashed onto the Gryffindor table recklessly.

There was a sudden explosion and Zabini shot back from the table, slamming into the Ravenclaw boy that was at the table behind him. Draco went on eating his food without any notice of this, while the rest of the hall had gone stark quiet to look at what the commotion was.

Lena blushed and nearly smiled as the thought of Draco's comment ran through her head continually; Dumbledore made some last minute announcements before the students went back to their corridors. The girl rushed off to her dormitory while the rest of her House was chatting in the halls outside of the basement.

The rest of the girls filed in for bed, getting their beauty sleep for the next day, which was their first day of classes. Lena began to read a book for Transfiguration and had gotten fairly far into it when, suddenly, Millicent knelt next to her bed. She had been so immersed in her book that she hadn't noticed the girl walk in.

"Malfoy wanted me to give you this," she whispered hoarsely, handing Lena the note.

"Thanks," Lena muttered. Lena shifted and put the blanket over her head. She took out her wand from her robe pocket and commanded the wand to ignite. It did and she read the note carefully.

 _Lena,_

 _Meet me outside the kitchens at one._

 _Draco_

The girl checked the time, and found she had five minutes to spare. She rolled out of the bed and headed out of the dormitory. Very few were left awake, surrounding the fire and telling stories of their summers. Lena crept out of the common room and practically ran to the kitchen.

She enjoyed the sound of her high heels clicking on the rock floor. Just a few corridors away from the kitchens, the girl straightened her skirt and pulled herself together, as well as her cloak around her.

Sweeping around the corner, Draco was waiting coolly against the wall. He looked up at her and nodded.

Lena nodded back.

"Come for a walk with me?" the boy asked in his usual drawl.

She nodded again and followed him out of the castle. Lena felt a sudden patter in her heart, yearning to hear what the boy had to say.

"I missed you," he said as they approached the lake.

"Missed me from what? We talked all summer." Lena stuck her tongue out to tease him and Draco moved forward menacingly, a playful aggression in his eyes. He lightly grabbed her arms. Lena stepped away and moved one of her hands up to her hair, which she grabbed thoughtlessly and awkwardly, tugging the strand behind her ear.

"C'mon," he began, "I want to show you something." He backed off promptly, seeing her graceless response.

The boy grabbed her wrist and pulled her along until they were walking at a steady pace towards the forest. The silence surrounded them and suffocated Lena. "Draco..." She said when they reached the forest, stopping, if only to break the long silence that had caused a radiating ringing in her ears.

He kept pulling at her arm until she eventually caved and kept following.

"Just a little farther," he muttered.

And suddenly they were in a clearing.

"Draco," she cried breathlessly. "I-it's beautiful..."

She could hear his breathing, his pulse as he pulled her closer. Her entire body surged with riveting waves, turning her knees to dust.

She felt him pulling her closer, his arms drawing around her as her nerves dulled from the overwhelming sensations.

His head drew nearer; Lena closed her eyes in anticipation; Draco's soft lips met hers.

And, suddenly, she was numb and silence erupted.


	2. Chapter 2

Two.

Class dragged on; it was like the grains of sand were too large to fit through the hole in the center of the hourglass. Lena found herself gazing in Draco Malfoy's direction, but the boy was preoccupied with some note written on yellowish paper.

His typical scowl had turned into an infuriated furrowing of his brows.

"Potions," Draco said after class ended, his expression immediately remedied, shifting to a smirk as he sauntered with Lena toward the dungeons. The girl glanced at him and knew that he was faking it. She found herself analyzing how she knew it was fake; the dark glaze that had cast over his eyes maybe, or how his shoulders slumped forward slightly, how his right brow furrowed slightly. She wanted to ask the boy what was wrong; though, after nearly fifteen years of knowing Draco, she rapidly decided to shove the perceptions from her mind.

The duo walked in silence, taking their usual seats in the back of the classroom. Snape hurried in after the class and began explaining instructions. It was some difficult potion that would likely be on their O.W.L.s and it was very important that each person paid close attention to their potion making.

Lena breezed through the potion, unlike most of the class. Her and Hermione Granger were the only ones to get it flawlessly. Potions was easily Lena's best subject, but it hardly made up for her low grades in the majority of her other classes.

Draco's potion was nearly flawless, but he forgot a stir and the color was slightly off. It was odd; Draco typically did as well as Lena, she figured that he was still distracted about the note and let it drop.

"Professor," Lena called across the room after she filled her vile and set it on his desk. "Professor Snape, I was wondering if I could stay a few minutes after class and talk with you?"

"Of course, of course, Miss Yavari," he cooed back from the ingredients cabinet.

When the rest of the class had left, and Draco promised to be waiting outside, Lena went to the front of the room and sat at a table closest to Snape's desk. He sat on top of the table and waited for her to begin.

"I was wondering..." She began. She paused and gauged his expression. "If you could help me with some more difficult potions..."

"Hmm. What potions?" the man inquired suspiciously.

"Felix Felicis."

Snape's eyes narrowed. "Lena, what do you need this for?'

"The Elixir of Life, the Draught of Living Death, the Polyjuice Potion, Scintillation Solution, Strengthening Solution, Truth Serum-"

"Enough, Lena. You may go."

Lena glowered and turned her back, glancing back to see Snape examining her vile from that day. As she opened the door to leave, Snape spoke. "I'll see you Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays at 9 o'clock. Don't be late."

The girl was simply beaming by the time she reached Defense Against the Dark Arts, which she was late to. Unfortunately, she had made Draco late as well. It was a Slytherin-Hufflepuff double lesson which was mainly composed of reading and Professor Umbridge explaining how the lessons for that year would go.

Lena's class reacted much better than the Gryffindor-Ravenclaw class, in which Harry Potter had evidently had an outburst in, not unusual for him.

"C'mon, Lena," Draco cooed when the class was over. The girl waved him on. It took him a second before he let it go and strode off to dinner, bullying first and second years all the way.

The girl walked into the Library, carrying a forged note from "Snape" that would allow her to get a couple advanced books from the restricted section. Surely, he would have given her the notes himself, for some of the books, but one one the list was not potions related and she didn't want more people to know she was getting it than she needed to.

The librarian got the books for Lena and handed them to her with trust and ease. Never had Lena done anything wrong, why would she start now?

The girl found an empty broom closet by the basement. She locked the door and began to read into one of the books. It was on advanced (and extremely painful, extremely illegal) spells that were not to be used in school.

However, on a stray rat, the girl practiced until she had several of the spells perfected. She smirked, with just a hint of evil, and brushed her blonde hair out of the way.

Lena wasn't evil, but the pure fact that all of the morons in the castle were wasting their time with nonsense like Divination, Ancient Runes, and _Quidditch_ , while she was more advanced in Dark Magic than most adult wizards obviously pleased her.

That night, Lena snuck out to meet Draco; this time by the Forbidden forest.

"Tell me, Draco," the girl demanded.

Draco pretended not to know what the girl was talking about. "Huh?"

"Don't play coy," she bickered sourly. "Tell me what you were reading in class today. And tell me what has gotten you so glum."

"It's nothing, Lena-"

"Draco, My parents are Death Eaters as well. Do you really think that I'm unaware that Our Lord has asked something of you?"

The boy coughed nervously, but began to explain. "I can't exactly tell you. You see...the Unbreakable Vow..."

Lena glared and began to stomp away from him. He grabbed her arm. She flung him off and continued to stride back into the castle. She looked up towards the sky, and then toward a face in one of the towers. She squinted. There was no way she could possibly see, but she knew that that was the Gryffindor tower and she knew one curious person that might be having bad dreams. The girl scowled.

"Potter." She muttered.

"What?" Draco Malfoy said from behind her.

"We're being watched. Kiss me." Something inside of her told her that she was looking for an excuse to be close to Draco.

His tongue nudged her lips diligently, with virtuoso. Lena gasped silently, and Draco quickly slid his tongue inside. Trying to remain as subtle as possible, the girl pushed his tongue out playfully.

Lena kissed his lips lightly once more and went to the edge of the castle. She put on her invisibility cloak and planned on skipping sleep that night so she could study more and write her parents a letter.

* * *

Her letter to her parents was shorter than she had planned, much shorter in fact, but a boy that was throwing up in the common room kept shooting her gazes in between heaves. She waved her wand to cover up the stench, leaving the boy to his misery. She crawled under her down comforter and spent the night reading a book under her covers with a lit wand.

After all, Lena Yavari had a lot to prepare for, especially since she had a meeting with Lord Voldemort at the end of October.


	3. Chapter 3

Three.

It was nine o'clock on Thursday Evening and Lena was sneaking out of her dormitory in an invisibility cloak. She crept the dungeons wearing high heels, regretting it before she left the common room. The light clicks on the floor had a delicate, impossibly magical sound.

She reached Professor Snape's office. She carried in her box of supplies without knocking. He was waiting for her at his desk, reading a potions book.

"Lena, we're going to start simple. I want you to make me the Drought of Living Death. Page seventy-three in your potions book. You know, the one you got from the restricted section.

The girl blushed and pulled the book out of the box. She hung her invisibility cloak over the back of her chair and began to make the potion.

It was done, flawlessly, in an hour. Snape walked over, took a vile, and excused the girl without a word.

She had been given a pass from Snape to return to her common room; however, the girl found herself hidden underneath her cloak and listening to the echoing click of her heels.

"Lena," someone said. The girl spun around.

Nobody.

The girl continued to walk, more quietly this time, prepared for it to happen again.

"Leennnaaa," said the voice again.

Five minutes later, Lena was running back to the basement common room. Panting, she spat the password out and opened the door that appeared. This did not stop the voice. Nothing stopped the voice. It took her an hour to realize that the voice was coming from inside her head- it sounded so real! And even after that, she had to charm herself to sleep on a couch in the common room, curled in front of the fiery heat.

* * *

"What the hell-"

Lena screamed in pain. There was an outburst of corruption as she flung herself around wildly. She had been stepped on. She smacked the third year that had done it and got up off the common room floor. She looked at the fire that had put itself out during the night and exhaled loudly.

"Watch where you're going," she growled. She didn't change her clothes and ran to her first class, which she was late to. She charmed her hair and makeup before she entered the door.

"Miss Yavari. Tsk, tsk, you're late," Professor McGonagall hummed as she walked in.

"I'm aware of that," she snapped smartly, regretting it immediately.

"Detention. Tonight, six o'clock."

Lena bit her lip, knowing she could have avoided the punishment with an apology instead of a smart-alec response. Holding back another smart comeback, Lena took her seat and waved her wand at the rat she was supposed to transform. It turned into a canary.

The boy next to her, impressed, asked her for help. She declined the boy's request and spent the rest of the class looking through an advanced wizardry novel.

* * *

Lena found herself ignoring everyone for the majority of the remainder of September and for the mid-part of October. Increasing nerves caused the girl's grades to fall, but she excluded herself from all other activities that weren't academic. Her potions skills increased tremendously with her lessons from Professor Snape. It came to the point where they were out of potions to try, so he began to give her tips to make the potions more effective, how to work with difficult ingredients, and where to find ingredients that couldn't be bought.

Rats were hard to find by this time. Many of them lie dead in the broom closet which was now transformed into a cruddy bedroom where she spent any of her leisure time. The door was always locked past the point of Alohomora, and could only be opened with a key-her key. She kept it on a thin sterling silver chain around her neck, beneath all of her clothes.

Insomnia consumed Lena. Any classes she missed were missed because she had fallen asleep in the broom closet, or in some other place where she wasn't likely to be stepped on, though sometimes it was inevitable.

She saw little of Draco Malfoy. In fact, Pansy Parkinson spent more time with that boy than Lena Yavari did at this point.

That was until...

"Lena!" Someone was slamming the broom closet door, pounding their fists.

The girl awoke and opened the door, recognizing Draco's voice. She threw a charm on herself, freshening her breath instantly, ignoring her dissheveled hair and smudged makeup.

"What the hell are you doing?!" He demanded as soon as he saw her. She looked outside to an empty corridor. She pulled him in and pushed him against the wall. She pressed her lips to his and played with his tongue. She bit his lip before pulling away from the minute-long kiss.

He held her in a tight hug for a while longer before continuing to harass her.

"Lena. You look like crap."

The girl frowned and waved her wand, fixing her makeup. Her hair was oily and frizzy and she desperately needed a bath. But the girl ignored this.

"Tomorrow, Draco. Tomorrow," was all she could say before kicking the boy out.

* * *

That night Lena took a bath, in the Prefects bathroom. She slept for twelve hours and awoke on Saturday morning early, preparing for her meeting with the Dark Lord.

It was a slow, exciting, and slightly dreaded walk to Hogsmeade. The first Hogsmeade weekend.

The girl reached the Hog's Head and walked in. She told the owner that she'd pass on a drink and sat in the back table, where someone was already sitting, cloaked and unseen.

This Unseen man took Lena's hand and pulled her out the back of the pub. They hurried to the outskirts of town, where a forest lay. And...

 _CRACK._

Lena was in front of a black hill with a very invisible door. She followed the man into the house to find a Death Eater meeting occurring.

"Alas!" said a weak voice, "The girl of the hour has arrived."

Several dark faces narrowed their eyes at Lena.

"Take a seat, take a seat," the Dark Lord ordered, waving his wand to make a chair available, the man flew back in a panic. She took Peter Pettigrew's seat, which was very close to the Dark Lord indeed. The man/serpent/creature licked his thin lips.

Lena remembered looking into the mirror that morning and seeing the hallow dark circles under her eyes. She hoped that she had not yet begun to resemble this horrid creature.

"I'm ugly, am I?" the Dark Lord laughed.

Many of the faces in the room sharply looked to the girl, prepared for Lena's quick death, but she did not die, because the man was laughing.

"It's about time someone was honest with me," the man continued to laugh- but suddenly, the laughter ceased. The environment changed severity quickly. "Are you ready for your task, Lena Yavari?"

This is no time to back out, the girl thought, nodding.

"I want you to..."

 _Kill Harry Potter, I can do it. Let me prove myself._

"Oh, no, of course not, my dear," the Dark Lord growled. "That will be my doing."

She kept forgetting that he could read her mind. She cleared it and prepared to listen for her task.

"I need you to-"

BANG. BANG. BANG.


	4. Chapter 4

Four.

A Death Eater flew through center of the dark wizards and crashed into Lena. The girl toppled over and her head banged into a rock. She stood up furiously, pushing the older man off of her rudely. The source the noise was a stray muggle kicking a metal garbage can, which had been unfortunately wandering in the wrong direction. And, again to his misfortune, had let Bellatrix Lestrange catch him in his attempt to flee.

Lena lowered her eyes, and hid her mind from the Dark Lord as best as she had learned to. She could feel his serpent eyes piercing the back of her head as she forced herself to peel her eyes away from the gruesome torture of the muggle.

"Psssss ssss..." He hissed at his snake. _Dinner._

Lena looked into his red slitted eyes cautiously, took a deep breath, and spoke, "As you were saying, my Lord?" Lena cocked a smile as she heard the last squeal from the dead man, letting the Dark Lord peer into her mind.

"Lena..." He began. "I require your attention between two matters; one concern is with Mr. Malfoy. I need you to help him acquire some of the skills he may need in the future. Also..."

Lena took a deep breath as the immortal paused.

"...Soon, I will call upon you to retrieve a package, and deliver it."

"That's all?" Lena scowled at the man for doubting her ability to kill. Doubting her ability to help the dark side. Doubting her.

"Yes."

The girl nodded her head in obedience.

 _CRACK._

She was back in Hogsmeade. Walking further and further away from the main area of the town. She tried to get lost, but found that the village was too small, too easy, too much like a grid. She found a small alley and sat quietly, cursing herself for not being given a task that even Draco had received. The girl retrieved her wand from inside her robe. She checked the clock tower that could be seen from almost anywhere in Hogsmeade. _Three hours_ , she thought.

The hood of her cloak cast a shadow over her face. She walked slowly, letting no one hear the steps she made in the snow. A loud, distorted echo was cast from the other end of the alley. Laughing. Lena remained quiet and hid behind a tall flower bin closer to the group.

"...Draco, my love, can we please tell everyone that we are together?"

"No, Pansy," Draco responded in his annoyed tone, as though he answered the question a lot.

"Who are we hiding it from?" Pansy demanded finally.

"Nobody, we aren't hiding it. Everyone knows. We don't need to look like bloody idiots going around and telling everyone."

She could feel the frustration better than she could hear it. She could see the situation beneath her eyes. Draco was leaning against a wall, his arms crossed, and a smirk on his face, always. And Pansy was grasping on to his arm, begging for him to be honest with her, her pug face welling up with tears pathetically.

Lena's heart sunk for some reason, she felt the need to run away. She forced herself to stay, to listen to the rest, but they both remained silent, and she swore she could almost hear the faint smacking of lips. She could feel the bright red heat of her face almost melting the snow.

Disgusted, Lena crawled away, not making a sound.

Twenty minutes later, Lena found herself outside of Knockturn Alley. She took a normal route and turned into a shop, planning on going down the row before her last two hours were up.

Nort. That was the man's name. In Lena's opinion, it should have been Wart, but that was life.

"Ahhh, Miss Yavari, it has been too long. My goodness, have you grown, the last time I saw you, you were a foot shorter."

He had seen her that summer. She hadn't changed.

Nort was a man of bulky stature, he wore dark, fine robes, but there were barely noticeable ink splotches in various places. He face was covered with warts and scars. Lena forced a smile at these thoughts and was about to ask the man for what she needed.

"I heard, what an honor," he began, "to go into the family business."

"Oh, yes, I am so excited." She droned, her voice not sounding the least bit excited. Lena couldn't help but let her thoughts shift to Draco and what he had said. Had she really been locked in a closet for so long that she had failed to notice he was dating her pug-faced rival? _I'm not jealous,_ she assured herself, _Draco is just my best friend and he deserves better._

"So what do you need, Miss?"

"I need sound intensifying ears, blackening dust, see all eyes-and, of course, some of your new items that we talked about over the summer." It was hard to get dark items in through the main gates at Hogwarts. But things were much more lax on Hogsmeade trips.

The man nodded and began to box up the items. He put the box into a nice leather purse. Lena moved onto the next store, getting ready to get revenge, get stronger, and finish her tasks with no mistake.

Her last stop was the book store, and she barely was able to fit what she had bought into the black purse, even with an enlarging charm cast on it. She appearated back to the Hogsmeade alley and walked steadily towards the castle gates, the leather purse weighing down on her left side.

"LENA!" Draco shouted from behind her.


	5. Chapter 5

Five.

A pang of sorrow hit Lena as she heard the boy's voice. She pretended to ignore the boy, for she still felt rage toward him. He ran and caught up. "Hey, I haven't seen you for a while. How have you been?"

"Busy." She replied shortly, keeping a brisk pace.

"Want to hang out later? You know, like we used to?" A sly wink indicated anything less than chivalrous.

"Can't. Too much homework." She lied and sped up. Draco made no attempt to catch her.

Lena found herself in the library, actually catching up on homework for once. She left it on each of the teacher's desks when she was finished and went to Professor Snape's office for her lesson in potions.

He was all ready; the items were set up and even the page number written on the board. She sat down and tried to begin. Her mind was troubled. She could not focus on reading. "How can one hide one's mind better?" she wondered suddenly aloud.

Snape looked up from the papers he was grading. "One must have good control over his or her mind."

"And how do you gain that control?"

"Like this," he said, flicked his wand at her and she was snapped into her past.

 _Lena's beautiful mother stood before her, telling her how all muggles were worthless, and that she was born into a family of purity, of wealth, of greatness._

 _Her mother was slapping her for talking to muggles, threatening to withdraw her wand in punishment._

 _She saw herself in birds eye view, a young, confused girl thrown into a world of hate, her blonde hair reaching past her mid-back, and tears streaming down her face silently as she watched. The young boy she had spoken of witches and wizards to was in the center of the group, passed out from the endless torture._

 _There was a large fire, and everyone in black hooded robes, no faces._

 _As the young boy awoke, someone shouted, "Avada Kadavra!"_

 _The boy's eyes became empty, dead, hollow as his body collapsed. That one second lasted an eternity._

Snape was shocked with horror when they were snapped back into reality. He bowed his head. "I'm sorry, Lena, it is hard for children to understand our means."

"I understand now, Professor. I completely do." Lena grinned her evil smile at him. He smiled back and went back to grading papers.

How many times had muggles killed witches and wizards with no good cause? They outnumbered us a thousand to one, yet they had no chance if there were a real war.

Snape had always been her favorite professor. He had always been like an uncle...a father away from home. Helping her with anything she needed.

Lena was lying in bed now, a million thoughts on her mind. Her vile of felix felicis that she had finished today sat in a cushioned lock box within her locked trunk. Pansy entered the doritory. This was the first time Lena had stayed in her dormitory for quite a while. Pansy took full notice and advantage. She went up to Millicent Bullstrode, whom she never talked to regularly.

"So Draco and I were making out, and Professor McGonagall gave us detention together. How great, isn't it? Does she really think it's a punishment if she puts us _together_?" Pansy laughed like a pig.

Lena shot a glare at the girl. She could only think of the bag filled with items in her trunk that she could use against Pansy.

* * *

It was three in the morning when Lena awoke. Everyone was asleep. She leaped up from bed silently and grabbed several items from her bag. She grabbed a thick wool gray coat to put over her dark green robes. She put the hood over her head and walked down the steps in her flat, soft bottom shoes. In the Slytherin common room, there were many older students, passed out from studying, possibly with a resolution to get better grades. Nobody else. She exited into the cold corridor. Each new hallway went on forever. Each noise caused the girl to jump anxiously.

Finally, she made it outside, past the tall hoops for wizard sport. And to the very edge of the forbidden forest.

Lena sat on a rock and sprawled out her items next to her. She reached for the book and opened it to her bookmark.

 _Magnus Explosus_

The girl silently waved her wand at a rock, merely thinking the phrase. It turned into dirt, and exploded everywhere. The girl raised her eyebrows. She imagined the effect on the human and grimaced, imagining the blood she would get on herself. "Crucio," she said out loud, pointing at a large tarantula crawling up on the rock. It curled into itself in pain. Lena laughed. Her laugh echoed into the night, into the forest.

She heard the crunching of leaves behind her. Footsteps that were trying to remain unheard.


	6. Chapter 6

Six.

"Draco, I thought I told you I don't like you spying on me..." Lena began before she turned quickly.

There was nobody in sight- but she could feel their presence now, hidden behind the trees, or magically invisible. At this point, though, she was certain that it was not Draco.

"Potter." She muttered quietly, so the person couldn't hear. And she stared for what seemed like an eternity at the area the noise had come from.

She saw the flicker she had been waiting for. She waved her wand at him, "Petrificus Totalus," and the boy collapsed. She jogged up to the figure and pulled off the cloak.

 _Not boy...girl._

Lena looked down into Pansy's pleading eyes. _Let me go_ , they screamed.

"It's a little late for you to be out here, Miss Parkinson. It's a little annoying that you're spying on me." Lena cast the anti-charm on Pansy. She stood, too afraid to say a word. Too afraid to move.

"Please...please don't hurt me, Lena, please..." The unsaid words hit Lena, _You're evil._

Smirking, Lena meandered away very halfheartedly. She had wanted to hurt Pansy, and bad, but something stopped her. If she got kicked out of Hogwarts, that would be the end of it for her. The Dark Lord needed Death Eaters at Hogwarts; That's why he had recruited her and Draco.

* * *

As she slept in her bed, her mind lay sprawled with images and fantasies of Draco.

She felt his warm touch on her arm, his breath on her neck, their lips brushing so softly.

Lena stirred awake. Pansy was still in her bed, her eyes wide open. It was early morning. The girl got ready and made sure she looked stunning. She walked out to the common room and saw Draco contemplating something on his mind. Lena ignored the opportunity to tell the boy of what she must teach him. Instead, she coughed sweetly, and shot him a flirting glance as he looked up. She tossed her hair over her shoulder lightly and walked out of the dormitory without turning around to gaze at him again.

She found herself in her old broom cupboard from the beginning of the year. She packed up her things quickly and made the bed turn back into a broomstick, dissipating the corpses of the rats, which left a noisome odor. With a few more swishes of her wand, Lena walked out of the closet with a particularly deadly book clasped tightly in her hands. Lena began stuffing it into her messenger bag as she walked up the stairs out of the basement.

In the Great Hall, Pansy and Draco sat next to each other. Feeling refreshed, Lena took the seat across from them. "How are the two of you this fine morning?" she asked in a sneering tone, smirking as she buttered a piece of toast, her eyes moving from Draco to Pansy serenely, with precise and blunt innocence.

* * *

It was Defense Against the Dark Arts with Ravenclaw. Lena sat in the empty chair in the back before anyone had arrived. Pansy sat at the seat in the farthest corner. Exactly as Lena had assumed, Draco came late, and he could only choose between the seat next to Lena and the seat next to Pansy.

He walked toward Lena without a second glance at Pansy. Lena smirked at Pansy's pathetic, appalled expression.

They did not speak. Lena wrote a note to the boy about her task.

 _Meet me in the astronomy tower, tonight. One. Don't be late. And don't bring your girlfriend._

* * *

Draco's POV

* * *

Class ended and Lena raced away before Draco could ask her about the note. He turned in his paper at the front desk, noticing that Lena had forgotten to turn hers in. Pansy left with the class, clearly mad at him.

 _Pshh, poor girl doesn't know when she's being used._

He walked back to his desk to grab his bag. Umbridge left Draco alone in the room- she could trust a Slytherin.

He took a Ravenclaw's paper and switched the name with Lena's with his wand. He left briskly for Potions, where he was hoping he would be lucky enough to be left with the same opportunity as the last class.

He wasn't.

Lena was sitting with that Mudblood Granger. And Pansy was sitting with Millicent. He looked around. It was between Longbottom and Zabini. Draco sat coolly next to Blaise.

"How's that Lena thing going for you?" Blaise began coldly.

"Fine."

Draco had forgotten about Blaise's crush on the girl. The guy was obsessed. He could almost see him Lena undressing beneath his eyes. His blood boiling, Draco began his potion.

* * *

Lena's POV

* * *

What had made Lena sit with Hermione, she did not know. She hated mudbloods, but she didn't hate this one. She couldn't figure out why. She was just too curious.

Lena and Hermione's potion was flawless, the only one in the whole class that was. The two left early together for lunch before the Quiddich match. Lena found her mind stimulated with the girl. Talking non-stop about classes, and advanced spells. Lena was ashamed to admit she even learned something from her. Confident that she had made the same impression, she walked to the Quiddich stands and sat in the farthest section from Hermione, next to Millicent.

"Where's Pansy?"

"Uh, I dunno know," the girl said slowly.

Pansy was always at Quiddich games, always there to cheer Draco on. So where was she?

Lena left when the game started. She could feel Draco's eyes searching for his club of fan girls.

* * *

Pansy's POV

* * *

 _There's gotta be something here..._

Pansy found herself tearing apart Lena's bed.

"Alohamora!" she shouted at the lock on the trunk. It remained closed. She tried several more times before moving to the end table drawers. There was nothing unusual. Normal fifth year books, several empty potion bottles, and full ink bottles, extra quills. But nothing evil, nothing abnormal... except for the locked trunk. Who locked up their extra clothes?

Pansy continued to look around anxiously. She lifted the bed and saw what she was looking for.

"Well, well, well...what do we have here?"

Lena's chilly voice hit Pansy like a bucket of ice cold water. The bed slammed down with a loud bang.


	7. Chapter 7

Seven.

* * *

Lena's POV

* * *

"So tell me..." Lena yawned. "Did you find what you were looking for?" She pulled out her wand and waited for Pansy to show how afraid she was.

"I'm sorry."

Lena waved her wand at her. Pansy flew up against the wall. "Do. Not. Let this happen again, Miss Parkinson."

The girl dropped onto the headboard below her with a sudden _SMACK_. She ran like the wind.

* * *

It was almost one-thirty, and Draco was not at the Astronomy tower yet. The longer the boy took, the more the girl looked up at the stars and was reminded of her childhood. And the more sad she felt. Draco was never late to meet her.

She heard his footsteps finally when the clock was approaching two. He narrowed his eyes. His dark gray clock covered his bottle green robes. His face was hallow and horrified.

"Pansy has been saying some rather _nasty_ things about you, Lena. Will you tell me what's going on?" His voice was abnormal. He was acting skeptical and would not come any closer than the entry way.

"Draco, we need to talk." He looked up at her, but did not move. She gestured at the stone cold bench and he hesitantly took a seat, keeping his distance from her.

She pulled her cold body close to him, feeling his warmth in her hug; she ignored her discontent when he did not hug her back. "The Dark Lord has asked a task of me." She whispered in his ear. He wrapped his arms around her suddenly, and her body finally relaxed fully into his.

"What is it?" he whispered back hoarsely, his voice and his touch forgetting anything Parkinson had said.

"To train you."

Draco pulled away quickly, searching her eyes for the truth.

Lena's quick ears heard the footsteps before Draco did. Grabbing Draco's tie, she pulled him into a kiss, she let her tongue play with his. She was looking for an excuse to take advantage of him- This had been perfect.

"That's detention. Both of you. Tomorrow night. Since you don't mind being out so late, let's make it eight to one." The footsteps led away. Professor McGonagall. As always.

Lena didn't stop kissing Draco. She pushed him down onto the bench and he didn't resist as she crawled on top of him. The minutes lasted seconds.

"Dump her." Lena whispered into his ear lightly, and left the boy there alone, making her way back down to the basement, clinging to the shadows to avoid being seen again.

Insomnia crept over the girl's mind as she sat alone in the common room, long after Draco had gone to sleep. She read endless pages of her restricted novels. The sunrise and the cool morning air swept Lena's hair back over her shoulders as she exited the castle for a morning stroll.

Her breath came out like smoke. In somewhat more fitting shoes than she normally remembered to put on, she ran faster than she had ever run before, deep into the forbidden forest. Dodging each stray branch with miraculous agility. Until she came to a clearing and she halted.

Lena panted to get her breath back. She dropped to her knees. It wasn't hard to hear the incoming centaur army over her panting. Though, she did not realize how close they were until she felt the spear piercing into the small of her back. Lena instinctively rolled onto her back and withdrew her wand.

An arrow hit Lena in her extended arm, though it did not pierce her, the sting caused her wand to drop onto the ground next to her. The girl grabbed it with her left hand and ran to the center of the group of centaurs.

"What are you doing here?" A seemingly wise and gray centaur asked. "These forests are dangerous for such a puny wizard."

"Puny?" Lena spat. Insulted, she prepared herself for the worst. The Unforgivable Curses. Which, she had discovered, were not so Unforgivable, especially now that her life was depending on it. But Lena showed no fear. If she had to kill all these centaurs, she would.

A dark shadow neared the clearing. It brought with it a chilly wind. Startling the centaurs, they ran away from Lena, leaving her without a fight. She stood, embracing the evil air that blew her hair. She felt invincible.

However, she couldn't help but wonder what had caused it in the first place. Not thirty feet away, a dark hooded figure approached slowly. Lena healed her right arm quickly and waited cautiously. When he was ten feet away, he stopped.

"You're lovely." He said.

She recognized the voice. But she felt as though it was lost in her mind who it belonged to. She looked down at his dark hands which held his wand. She made her conclusion.


	8. Chapter 8

Eight.

"Why did you help me?"

"I've already told you," he replied.

"I could have helped myself, Zabini."

"I know." He paused. "I wanted it to be a surprise; you're good, Lena."

The girl cocked a smile. "Thank you, either way."

Blaise removed his hood and flashed a full set of white teeth. His eyes had a red glare to them. His skin was evenly toned, and gorgeous. Lena gasped, finding her breath taken away just looking into his eyes. "Anytime," he cooed smoothly.

She walked back to the castle alone.

 _Why was he in the forest? Had he seen me run there, and went after me?_

Question after question flooded her mind.

 _Good thing it's a Saturday._

In the Great Hall, Lena sat with the Slytherins, farther away from Draco and Pansy than she normally went. Wrath and envy surged through her as she saw they were still together.

She ignored Draco's eyes each time they glanced. She took a piece of buttered toast and spread jam on top.

Blaise took the seat across from her. "How are you this morning, Lena?" He asked, much more loudly than he needed to, she noticed.

She glanced at Draco, and noticed him staring.

"I'm wonderful, and you?" She smiled.

"Great, great." She sensed Blaise's nerves from across the table. She she almost could hear his heart pulsing heavily. "I was wondering...would you mind me accompanying you to Hogsmeade today?"

She found herself looking at Draco with narrowed eyes and a smirk. She looked back at Blaise. "I'd love to."

A loud bang from down the table showed that Draco was pissed off, flinging food onto some of the younger Slytherins and Ravenclaws. Draco stormed out of the Great Hall, making it the most notable incident of this year.

With one last awkward glance at Blaise, Lena left shortly after Draco and went into the Slytherin common room.

It did not surprise her that Draco was not to be seen. He was the type of person who had a hiding place for times like these and he kept it secret; he'd never even shown Lena his coolest hiding spots in the school, which he bragged about constantly to her the previous year. She paced slowly up the stairs and entered the Fifth Year dormitory. She went to her trunk and pulled out her nicest green robes and cloak.

Thirty minutes later, she was looking pristine and gorgeous waiting for Blaise in the Great Hall. As usual, he strolled in, murdered out in black. She took his offered arm, knowing that somewhere, Draco was watching, and if he wasn't, someone would tell him about it.

* * *

Inside the pub with Blaise, he ordered and paid for their butterbeers, while also pulling out Lena's seat. Impressed by his ability to be a gentleman, she asked him how he was doing in his classes this year, as she sat on the bench.

"Very well, I suppose, they're easier than I expected during O.W.L.S. You?"

"I'm sure my grades are above Troll." She smiled diligently, acting as though it were a coy lie. It wasn't.

"Well, you've got better things this year than most of us do," he whispered, winking.

Lena glanced around for Ministry spies or muggle filth.

"You heard?"

"Who hasn't? My parents may not be as active in the wizarding community, but we know whose side we're on."

Lena nodded and took a sip of her drink.

"Do you want to go for a walk?" He asked as she finished her drink. She noticed he had barely drank any of his. Lena looked up into his eyes again, and couldn't resist nodding and exiting into the wintery air with him. A shiver overcame her. Blaise removed his cloak and put it on her. They walked toward the outskirts of town before taking a seat in a park.

Blaise moved his hand onto Lena's against the cold bench. She let the warmth soothe her. Blaise turned his head toward her. She could feel his gaze but she didn't look at him, not yet. She looked up onto the mountains and imagined how Draco would be tonight at detention. The thought made her ridiculously happy. _He deserves it._

At that thought, Lena turned her head to glance at Blaise and, before she knew it, felt Blaise's lips press against hers. He tried to pry into her mouth with his tongue. Lena jumped up and backed off, overcome with guilt about Draco. She muttered something to Blaise about forgetting homework she had to do, and jogged away coolly.

 _Draco has done the same thing to me his entire life,_ she argued with herself.


	9. Chapter 9

Nine.

It was seven fifty-five, and Draco and Lena were sitting in Professor Mcgonagall's office, awaiting her arrival. There had been no words for the previous five minutes, and Lena expected none for the next five. Draco was pissed. He didn't sit next to her, he didn't even look at her. The only thing he did do was knock off everything on Lena's desk as soon as he walked in. A quick spell had fixed the problem, but still left the two with a heavy tension of silence.

The footsteps in the hallway echoed though the awkwardly quiet classroom and the door opened with a loud squeal.

"You too will spend your time in the kitchens tonight. The feast for tomorrow is already being prepared. We find ourselves a little short handed. You are ignore any thing anyone tells you not to do, and stay in the kitchens until one. Understood?"

The two nodded. Even Professor McGonagall sensed the tension. She exhaled, "Young love," underneath her breath. Lena stood and followed the professor, as did Draco. How wrong she was...

When they reached hallway to the kitchens, McGonagall left them alone, but not before assuring them she would be back to check up on them soon.

Walking down the long hallway was like entering the chocolate factory in Willy Wonka. The further they went, the smaller the hallway got, until they finally reached the door, bending over. Lena entered first, regretting it immediately, just imagining the joy in Draco's face.

However, when she looked back at Draco, he had occupied himself with something on the ground. Slightly disappointed, Lena took a seat by the kitchens and began to charm her nails.

"Aren't you going to work?" Draco asked coldly.

"Haven't you ever had detention in the kitchens before?" Lena snapped back.

Shrugging it off, Draco went over to the sink, were there was a massive pile of dishes being cleaned by a House Elf. "Oh my, Master Malfoy, would one like something to eat?" it chirped. Draco smiled coolly and sat next to Lena.

"So how was your date?" he sneered.

"Date?"

Lena looked into Draco's eyes. He was too happy with himself. _What did he do?_ she automatically wondered.

* * *

Draco's POV

 _Earlier that evening..._

* * *

Draco sat, waiting. His eyes focused on his wand, which he was twirling in his fingers, going over each imperfection in order, knowing it better than the back of his own hand. He had sent those goons Crabbe and Goyle to the kitchen, where they could get unlimited cakes- that should occupy them for a while.

The dormitory was dark for what time it was. Merely six o'clock, but each day the sun set earlier and earlier in it's normal axis. Draco was leaning against the wall, waiting calmly and casually. Until finally, the minute arrived. The door opened in the darkness, letting a small stream of light peek in. And then it was immediately slammed out. Blaise Zabini hid well in the shadows, but Draco saw him, casually going to his trunk.

 _He thinks he's alone._

Draco sufficed a laugh and walked over to him, each step quieter than the last. He grabbed Zabini's throat from behind and pressed his wand in deep. "I told you not to do it, Blaise."

The boy pushed Draco's wand away and spun around. A forceful punch landed in Draco's stomach. He clutched it for a second, dropped his wand, and attacked Zabini with all his built up rage, his wand lay forgotten.

Punching Blaise in the face continually, Draco was surprised at his own physical force. Blaise smacked Draco in the head with a broomstick from under the bed, narrowly missing his eye and hitting his cheek. The door opened and Draco knew that the other years had come to see what the commotion was about. Draco pulled Blaise's neck toward him and whispered something in his ear.

Finally, worn out and dripping with blood and a broken nose, several students helped Blaise to the Hospital wing. Draco stood with mere scratches and a puffy cheek.

* * *

Lena's POV

 _Back in the Kitchen..._

* * *

Draco's gray eyes were still looking into hers. "You're so beautiful." He mumbled suddenly.

"You're so handsome." She couldn't keep the sarcastic acid from her voice.

"I've known since the moment I met you-"

"Enough of the mushy stuff," she snapped and began to kiss Draco, pulling his blonde hair and running her hands against it. He held her neck tightly, pushing her even closer to him.

He paused, looking into her eyes, "I love you."

Startled, Lena backed away. "What?" she asked stupidly. She couldn't think. The girl backed into sacks of flour, tripping backwards, and left an explosion of white powder all over her.

"Draco, you're my best friend; we can't fall in love."

She didn't know what made her say it. He looked hurt.

"What is all of this then, Lena? You constantly throwing yourself at me?!"

Lena quickly averted the subject, "Draco, I have to train you to do some things that will change who you are. Have you ever killed anyone? Anything?"

The boy shook his head and sat next to Lena.

"We are going to be a part of the greatest thing in the world, Draco. We're purebloods. We're Slytherin. We contain no muggle filth in our blood, we're free of all that. And we have more important things than falling in _love._ "

He looked in her eyes. "But haven't you ever had any doubt? About whether or not we're doing the right thing?"

"No." She replied more quickly than she meant to.

"Me neither," he said just as quickly.

The choke in her throat told her she was lying to him. She didn't care. He looked in her eyes and searched for the truth. "Don't be uncertain, Draco," she continued, "The Dark Lord has given everybody the chance to choose the right side. And those who still side with mudbloods, well, they're just as bad. Just like the Weasley's. Can't even afford proper dress robes. How pathetic." She smirked, though she had still failed to cheer him up.

"I have an idea. How about we just start your training. With Potter."

Draco looked up and smiled at her. She stood, tried to brush off the flour as best she could, failed, and nodded her head at Draco to follow her. She could feel him behind her, but for some reason, he dared not walk next to her. She imagined he felt awkward for saying I love you, but she didn't. She did love Draco, but she was too busy for him. Maybe she should have let Pansy have him for a while and not be so prehensile with him.

"How do you know where he is?" he asked taciturnly.

"Are you kidding? He's been secretly teaching those kids for almost a month. Right now, they have a lesson."

"How did you know that, and I didn't? You're more out of the loop than anyone else in the school."

"Am I? Or perhaps I manage a subtle observance whilst still learning to be the greatest witch of all time." Draco looked at her, as if asking her whether or not she was serious. "Or, perhaps I overheard about their meeting at the Hog's Head when I was on my date with Blaise." She smirked.

"So it was a date," he said disappointingly.

"Draco, please, I don't want to get caught right now. Don't let me start about Pansy." He frowned.

By this point, the two of them reached a small broom-closet door, Draco reached to open it, but Lena stopped him. She handed him a small vile of polyjuice potion, which already contained the hairs of two Hufflepuffs in the hospital wing, still prepared from when Professor Snape had her make it over the last month. He took the shot without a thought, and then gagged for five minutes. Lena took hers more slowly, and gagged a lot longer.

When they had completely transformed, Draco looked at the girl that had replaced Lena. "Ew..."

"Hey, you're not so hot yourself, let's just do this," Lena snapped, slightly insulted, but realized her hair was frizzy and she wasn't exactly on the thin side- completely the opposite. She walked by the door three times, getting an awkward look from Draco.

"Wait, you didn't tell me what we were doing," he complained as she grasped the door handle.

"I know," she whispered and turned the knob.


	10. Chapter 10

Ten.

Everyone in the large room was facing them when they entered. "Hey, fellas, sorry we're late," Lena said in her dorky "Hufflepuff" tone.

"It's okay," Harry Potter said,"we're just getting started anyway."

Lena looked at Draco and back at Harry.

"All right everyone, partner up, we're going to be practicing protective spells."

"What good is that? When He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is about to kill us?" A Ravenclaw said.

"It won't be any good," Lena whispered to Draco and he laughed. However, the two took their positions across from each other. "Expelli-"

"Pretego!" Draco shouted before the spell even came close.

"Great job!" Harry yelled stupidly at him. Draco glared at him with all his hate. Lena cast another spell at Draco, which he failed to protect himself from and was thrown back onto the ground. He stood up quickly and stunned Lena.

The two glared at each other, and slowly began to smirk. The entire room was filled with explosions. Lena pulled out a black velvet bag and threw it into the air. She shot a spell at it and it burst open, covering the entire room in a thick cloud of black smoke. "NOW!" she screamed.

Draco shot a spell she could not hear at Harry. She ran toward the door and waited outside with the door open, watching only the edge of the commotion. Draco finally exited, his fist clenched and a sneer residing on his face.

"Happy now?" she said, slamming the door to the room with a grin and running back down to the Slytherin common room.

The two sat alone in the big chairs by the fire.

"You should join Umbridge, she's against Harry," he began, but Lena interrupted.

"Draco, I have better things to be worrying about than that Harry Potter. And so do you. The Dark Lord will handle him, as he has promised to."

He turned away and did not reply, lost in thought.

"I'm going for a walk." She stood, but as she was about to walk away, Draco spoke.

"Lena."

"What?"

"Will you come to the ball with me?" he said slickly, raising his eyebrows.

"Er...what about Parkinson?"

"I wanted to ask you first."

Angry with his answer, she did not reply and left for her walk.

 _Stupid, stupid, stupid boy._ Her pace was fast and angry. She wondered if someone was following her, as they usually were. All was good, unless a teacher happened to open their eyes. The gigantic tower began to toll. It was midnight. Detention lasted forever.

She shot spells in front of her, killing any spiders or other dark creatures of the night. "Avada Kadavra." She shot at a bird. It fell dead. She leaned against a small boulder to catch her breath.

Feeling as though her anger had been fitting enough to make her happy, she returned to the kitchens silently. Lena shoved a house elf aside after washing her hands and began to chop massive amounts of vegetables recklessly. Professor McGonagall stormed in right on time..

"And where is Mr. Malfoy?" she inquired hastily.

Lena shrugged.

"I'm right here," he said from the back of the kitchen, no doubt having just snuck in the back. "Just getting some more potatoes." He was indeed carrying a small sack of potatoes. A very small sack of potatoes.

Lena withheld her laugh and looked at the Professor. She seemed grim that the two had fouled her. "Very well, get some sleep, you two." They started towards the door. "And a shower, hmm?"

Lena looked down at herself. The trim of her robes were dingy with the dirt from the forest, and her robes still had splotches of flour. Exhaling, she walked to the door, where Draco casually banged his head on the frame, even with bending over, with his stalking height. She did not speak to him as she headed to the prefects baths on the third floor. She always used them; prefects never seemed to take showers anyway.

Lena regretted her focus on the Dark Arts for a moment. She realized that if she had focused on her grades in the years before, she would have been made a prefect over Pansy Parkinson. And that would have eliminated the massive amount of time Draco spent with the girl, doing rounds, giving and taking points, and leading first and second years around.

Entering the bathrooms, after spewing the password, she took the most private bath in the back and began to fill it. The place was empty, as usual.

Finally, she relaxed in the hot water. She realized something.

 _Draco's been snogging Pansy a lot longer than I've known. For years, they've been together without my knowledge._ She splashed the water menacingly, imaging the two of them. _They've done a lot more than snogging._

The prefects bathroom door opened. Lena quietly waded to the curtain and peeked through...


	11. Chapter 11

Eleven.

Of course, it was Parkinson. Her pug-face watching a tub fill up slowly, so positively sure that she was alone. Lena relaxed with her back to the curtain. She listened to the tub flowing full and the water stop. She heard footsteps wandering around the room and suddenly-

The curtain snapped open behind her.

"Dude!" Lena covered herself. "Have some manners, for the love of Merlin." She turned to look at Pansy.

"You aren't a prefect, Yavari." The girl paused. "One hundred and fifty points from Slytherin."

"You're taking points from your own house, you do realize this, right?" Lena shrugged her short, silky green robe on.

"I'm sure Slytherin has some points to spare.." Pansy was still glaring at her from the other side of the baths. "You should get out of here before I have to tell a professor."

"You know, Pansy," Lena said, retrieving her wand. "How about..no?"

"Expelliamus!" Pansy screamed. Lena's wand sunk into the bath.

Lena looked down at it as it sunk gracefully, and began to laugh uncontrollably. Pansy was looking at her with a frightened expression, not sure why Lena was so hysterical. "If you want to make this a war, Parkinson, you can make it a war. But let's be honest, who do you think is going to win?"

"Draco asked me to the Ball weeks ago." She interrupted, sneering with pride. Lena couldn't lie to herself that it hurt.

"Please, Parkinson, Draco is using you. Until he can have me." Lena felt herself lying to Pansy to hurt her feelings, stark with envy and bitterness.

"Well, he asked me again tonight, and I accepted! He's not using me, he loves me. He tells me all the time!"

Lena gritted her teeth, even though she felt Pansy was lying about the last part. The Ravenclaw prefect entered just then. _What the hell is going on tonight?_ Lena wondered.

"What's going on in here?" she asked Pansy, looking at Lena.

"Will you watch this one for a second, I need to grab a Professor; she's refusing to leave." The girl nodded.

 _Accio!_ Lena thought, and her wand immediately floated up into her extended hand.

Lena collected her things after Parkinson left and headed toward the Slytherin common room, where she would finish her shower in the crappy ones that everyone else used- though she really should complain to her father; she was a pureblood using showers that couldn't even control the heat they put out.

Finally, at around two thirty in the morning, Lena drifted into a soft and silent sleep, filled with disturbing nightmares she would forget the moment her eyes opened.

* * *

Pansy's POV

* * *

Pansy Parkinson left the prefects bathrooms on the third floor and began down the stairs, all the time wondering if Lena was serious. She arrived out front of Professor Snape's office and knocked on the door. She heard minimal amounts of groaning coming from the inside. Finally, the door opened.

"Yes, Miss Parkinson?" he asked groggily.

"Professor, Lena Yavari is in the prefect's bathrooms and is refusing to leave- even after I took points from Slytherin."

There was a long pause, Pansy waited anxiously for him to follow.

"Learn to handle your own problems, nobody likes a tattle-tale." He slammed the door in her face.

Pansy stood in disappointment. The door opened again. A slight glimmer of hope showed on her face.

"It's almost two in the fucking morning." He slammed it again.

She frowned and sulked back to the Slytherin common room.

* * *

Lena's POV

* * *

Her eyelids were orange, shielding the sun. It was still early for a Sunday. The sun had risen, but everyone was sleeping soundly, enjoying that there were no classes again today. Tonight, there would be a ball, honoring Hallow's Eve.

Lena strolled the early morning halls, and for some reason, found herself in the hospital wing. She entered without a thought, and looked at who had managed to try to self destruct at Hogwarts this year.

Mostly, it was mudbloods or halfbloods, one of the Weasley's, as usual, if they made it a day without hurting themselves, surely that was a great feat. Especially since their family was like breeding mice.

There was one bed curtained. Lena peered inside.

"Blaise!" she screamed, scrambling over to him.


	12. Chapter 12

Twelve.

"Blaise...What happened?"

The poor guy looked like he'd be neglected, covered in coagulated, dried blood. And his -

"Why is your nose so...droopy?"

"You remember when Harry Potter lost his arm in second year?"

Lena scowled. "Who.." she did not finish. _That glimmer in Draco's eyes. That was him thinking about this,_ she realized. "Draco."

"You didn't know? He didn't come to you to claim his prize?" The boy was bitter, she couldn't blame him for it.

"His prize?" she repeated.

"He did it to show me you were his. And nobody else's."

"Blaise. I like you. A lot." She admitted.

"More than Draco?"

"Draco is my best friend, but he cannot rule my life." She paused. "Draco removed your nose?" She couldn't help but giggle.

"Nah, that was somebody trying to help me actually. And it's not funny," He joked.

Lena sat in the closest armchair, her demeanor changing rapidly. "This is all my fault. I should have warned you."

"We both have secrets we've kept from each other that I'm sure the other would love to know. But they're secret for a reason." He paused. "I guess."

"Wow, Blaise, you come off _sooo_ wise." She smirked.

Blaise leaned his head closer to hers, he was an inch, a centimeter. The stench clouded her nose. She jumped back, knocking the armchair over.

Blaise's head sunk in defeat.

Truthfully, it was hard not to look at his face in disgust. With the amount of blood, filth, and the droopy nose...

"Awkward.." Lena said, laughing, trying to break the silence.

"Sorry," he muttered.

"Uh, nah, don't worry about it. I just, uh," she paused. She rarely couldn't find the right words to say. She breathed slowly and calmed her heart and she focused her eyes on him until he looked up. She smiled. "You've just got a little something on your face right..." she pointed, "here. I'll catch you later though, looks like your nose only needs a little more time."

She bolted before he could speak. The awkward situation clogged the flow of Lena's mind. She couldn't stop feeling like she was acting lame around Blaise. _I should have just kissed him..._

 _Ew._

Lena had three essays to finish that morning and afternoon, otherwise, she'd have to miss the ball entirely. She sat in the center of the library- nobody was in there today, they were all readying for the ball.

A blank roll of parchment was laid out in front of her, her dry quill in clasped in her hand. The words wouldn't flow. So many things occupied her mind. The Dark Lord. Draco. Blaise. Pansy. The Ball.

Only the first one mattered at all.

Dipping her quill in ink, she forced out three essays that were clearly spaced widely so that they were long enough. She put the papers in her messenger bag. As she was setting them between two books, she pulled out a large dark book that she had not opened yet. She had gotten it with all of her other books, but until now, had not considered reading it. She pulled it out, and stealthily put her back to the librarian.

She randomly picked a spot in the middle and opened the book. The book began to quiver and then shake violently. A loud piercing scream hit the silent library in the worst way. She slammed it shut quickly, but the damage was not undone. She heard first, the pattering footsteps of the librarian, and then, the loud thunder of curious steps echoing from the corridor.

 _Ah, shit._


	13. Chapter 13

Thirteen.

"MISS YAVARI! Are you okay?" The librarian shouted, running up to her. The book was already safely placed back in her bag.

"I'm great, I'm great." She realized that the woman thought it was Lena who was in danger; that it was Lena who'd screamed. "I just startled myself." Everyone that was crowding around could hear what she was about to say and she couldn't think of an excuse. She combed her mind thoroughly. "Just thought I saw some sort of apparition come out of the corner over there. Must have been Nearly Headless Nick or the Bloody Baron..." She slowly picked up her bag from the floor and pushed passed the curious faces out of the library.

She walked away quickly, not waiting for a reply. Of course, she had said the stupidest thing she could have possibly thought of.

Lena found herself desperately searching for an appropriate ball gown. She knew that she should practice some more magic, preparing for whatever the Dark Lord had coming for her, but she couldn't. Not when Draco wouldn't even be available to train.

The girl went to the bathrooms and locked a private showering stall. She sat on the wet floor, soaking her robes.

"Lena?" Somebody was in the room with her. The voice was soft and high pitched. It echoed in the cement room. "Are you okay?"

The voice sounded distant.

A flash of cloudy white light shot out of the drain in the floor.

"Oh, hey, Myrtle." Lena couldn't help but sound disappointed.

"What's wrong? Is it that Harry Potter boy again?" Myrtle's voice entered a state of dreaminess. Myrtle spoke of Potter any time she had the opportunity.

Lena couldn't help but laugh, remembering her problems from her first two years at Hogwarts.

"Absolutely not, he stopped bothering me after..." _after Draco and I stopped hanging out as much at school._

"After what?" Myrtle asked patiently.

"After I taught him a lesson," she lied.

Perhaps Lena hadn't been alone this year. Myrtle spent all of her waking hours (which was all twenty-four of them) spying on the people she seemed to like the most over their years at Hogwarts.

It was in Lena's first year that she figured out she couldn't use any bathroom without something going terribly wrong. After searing hot burns, losing a few fingers in the drain, and...dozens more mishaps, Lena discovered that it was not a normal thing at Hogwarts.

She spent months tracking down who was torturing her. It was Myrtle. Who was jealous of her. The two became friends quickly after that.

"Beauty is a curse," Lena repeated her words from four years ago out loud. "A whole new terrible curse. Worse than in first year."

"What do you mean?"

"Boys."

"So it is Potter!"

"No, Myrtle, it's Draco and Blaise." She paused. "I gotta go, though," Lena lied, and slipped out of the bathroom. She walked through the halls, getting quite a lot of attention..

"Lena, will you accompany me tonight?" It was Goyle. Lena tried not to barf, saying the same excuse she had given to Crabbe, that she had another date already. Though, the two of them talked so much, she was sure that Goyle knew Crabbe had already tried, which only lead her to believe that somebody else was setting it up. Or perhaps Goyle thought he was more attractive than Crabbe. Or perhaps Draco wanted to make sure she went with somebody that was ugly.

It was almost an hour before she saw somebody that she was actually excited to see. His perfect dark skin not covered with blood or dirt, and his nose was perfectly back into place.

"Blaise," she exhaled breathlessly. It was hard to say more his name when he looked so good; so handsome.

"Lena." He paused, looking in her eyes. "I've heard that someone is already taking you, and it may be Draco. But please say you'll come to the ball with me."

She didn't answer. She swallowed and watched his face turn into disappointment.

"Of course, Blaise. I thought you knew we already had plans for the ball," she told him bluntly.

His smile spread wide.

The two walked back to the Slytherin common room together, and separated, him going to prepare for the ball in the dormitory for the boys. Lena was about to walk up the stairs-

 _BANG!_


	14. Chapter 14

Fourteen.

Lena ran out to the common room window, where a knocked out bird nearly fell off the ledge. Lena levitated the poor thing through the window, opened the window and brought it inside. It clutched a scroll in it's claws. Lena removed it and tried to heal the bird.

She opened the scroll.

 _Lena,_

 _I know you got this because you're the only Slytherin that would have helped this bird. Which is why I had to make sure it died right when it arrived at Hogwarts. Sorry._

Lena stopped reading at looked at the dead bird apologetically.

 _You will meet your correspondent at Hog's Head at ten. The two of you will go to the Forbidden Forest to retrieve the package. Do. Not. Be. Late. The Dark Lord threatens death._

 _Love always, your mother and father._

The letter exploded in her hands. Nobody in the common room bothered to look anymore. This kind of thing was common when almost half of the population of Slytherin had parents who were also part of the Dark Lord's plan.

Lena threw the shredded up note on the ground in anger, though it made no effect and the pieces floated like feathers to the ground.

The night was still young. Lena checked the time. Four-thirty.

Lena ran upstairs and got herself looking fabulous.

* * *

As she walked into the common room, Blaise's red eyes beamed at her as he held his arm outstretched. She took his arm and looked around hesitantly for Draco. He was no where in sight. Nor was Pansy.

Blaise twirled her around as he admired her expensive ball gown.

It was silver and trimmed in blue in all the right places. Her back was almost completely exposed and the bodice was covered in expensive jewels. The hem was perfectly tailored to her height, and the skirt had just enough volume to make Lena's figure look perfect.

Her hair was up in a fancy bun, and a few stray curls completed the look.

Lena moved gracefully, placing her wand in a small handbag which she had placed an extendable and feathering charm on to make it so she could fit everything, even a change of clothes and a few books for a possible train ride.

Pausing by the door, Lena looked into Blaise's eyes. Her lips drew closer to his. Their lips met and they kissed for a long time. Blaise's tongue dazzled her mouth, causing explosions of butterflies in her stomach, which only lead to a sudden nausea. Lena drew away. She felt _his_ eyes piercing into the back of her head. She did not need to look to know it was him.

Draco.

He glared at her the entire time he walked by, holding hands with Pansy, who wore a drab and slinky cocktail dress.

A surge of jealousy aroused in her stomach and she no longer felt nauseous.

"You were informed that this was formal, I hope, Parkinson," Lena spat acidly before the two could step out of the common room. "Cocktail dresses are hardly even semi-formal."

Pansy blushed crimson and took a hurried glance down at her dress and one inch heels, then glanced back at Lena's expensive ensemble from a haute couture Italian designer. Draco saved her, pulling her away from the insult without a word.

She breathed deeply for a few seconds, letting Draco get a head start before she dragged Blaise out of the common room and toward the Great Hall; it would be beautifully decorated, and a huge feast that would mostly go to waste would be waiting for these wizards who would try to be classy for one night.

Lena felt her heartbeat throughout her head. Her breathing would not slow down. She sat at a private table with Blaise. The entire Great Hall had been rearranged. The long tables had been replaced with varying sizes of circular tables, from two person tables, to 12 seats. The ceiling had foot wide floating lanterns, which was surprisingly not that amazing. However, the fairies sprinkling glowing, rainbow dust was another story. Draco sat at the only huge table, arrogantly telling a story to most of the cool Slytherins. Lena held Blaise's hand atop the table.

Food appeared suddenly on the plates in front of everybody. Exactly what she had wanted. And everyone else had something different.

Blaise and Lena began to eat the meal, before being interrupted by Dumbledore.

" _Blah, blah, blah, how old is he anyway? Shouldn't he be in the grave?"_

Blaise laughed appropriately, but Lena got a strange feeling that Dumbledore had heard her as his eyes pierced into her.

* * *

"I'm going to go freshen up." Lena stood and walked away from Blaise, and toward the bathrooms, which had a steady stream coming in and out of the door. Pushing past the others, Lena got herself in front of a mirror.

"Draco's such a good kisser."

Lena snapped around. Pansy was standing in the corner, surrounded by a bunch of giggling girls, who where probably only at the ball because of boys like Crabbe and Goyle.

"So good. And he's better at other things too. He treats me like a princess. Constantly wanting to touch me."

"Sounds like such a gentlemen," Lena remarked coldly. The giggling ceased as the girl drew closer. "Slut." Lena walked out of the bathroom without any fear. Though, she was aware she may have just started something that could have waited for another night.

A bell tolled nine times. She had less than an hour with Blaise before she would have to leave. She sat at the table with him once again. She looked at him. His handsome face. Lena looked over at Draco, who was no longer the center of attention. Pansy was.

 _No. I am._ They were all looking at her. Lena glared back and kissed Blaise. Draco was drawing closer, getting into ear range. Blaise had no idea.

"Will you be my girlfriend?" Blaise asked as Lena pulled out of the kiss slowly.

Perfect timing.

"Yes!" Lena exclaimed, wrapping her arms around Blaise's neck and giving him another long smooch. It was peculiar how the sharp, cold, wind brazed the back of her neck as Draco walked by, seemingly changing his mind about approaching the table. And with that icy breeze, she felt something really nasty coming on.

"Let's dance!" Lena yelled over the music of some lame, poppy witch band. The two of them got close to the stage with all of the fans of the crappy music. She pretended to like it, having the little fun she could before she had to go.

Lena gestured for Blaise to follow her after a long while. She led him into a dark, quiet corridor outside of the Great Hall. "I have to leave now."

"Come on, Lena, it's so hard to get five minutes with you."

"True. But maybe my schedule will free up soon enough," she lied. "See ya." She kissed him swiftly and walked quickly up the stairs to a side exit.


	15. Chapter 15

Fifteen.

* * *

Blaise's POV

* * *

He watched as Lena's cloak dragged around the corner. He stood there anxiously for a long time, waiting for her to return with a huge grin and laughing at her pathetic joke.

 _No wonder Draco couldn't date her._

He immediately regretted his thoughts. He adored Lena, since the first day he met her. He couldn't stop thinking about her at school, and summer was three months of torture without being able to see her.

 _And now I'm so close to having her, finally._

Blaise did not return to the Great Hall. Despite that there were festivities going on all night until the early morning hours, he knew that it would be a death wish to enter those doors without Lena.

The common room was empty. All of the little Slytherin's had crawled into bed, and all of the older ones had less than legal plans ahead of them. Blaise sat on his bed and wondered what would happen of the cute table he had set up at the astronomy tower; he knew that Lena adored the stars, and that she loved going there.

Blaise's attention snapped back on to Lena's future, which was more and more on his mind lately. He couldn't help but feel that the girl was endangered.

 _The Dark Lord._ He paused. _She's going to be a Death Eater this year._

He wondered how she had been able to convince the Dark Lord to let her in. Or maybe it had been her parents. Either way, Lena was intelligent, and she had already chosen her life's path.

 _No going back now for her..._

* * *

Lena's POV

* * *

The girls heels clattered against the floors as she strutted out on the stone path into the dark night. She looked to the skies and saw that the moon was in shadow. Ten minutes later, the girl had settled herself into some muggle jeans and tee shirt, sitting at the Hog's Head waiting for the timing to be correct.

 _After tonight, I'll be only two tasks from my life's goal,_ she encouraged herself. Though, she knew that despite how easy delivering a package sounded, she doubted the Dark Lord would test her skills so jokingly.

She lightly touched her wand, preparing for anything.

BANG!

The door to the Hog's Head swung open with the help of wind and a small nudge from a gigantic man walking through the opening. Lena grasped her wand tightly, concealing her discontent, and putting her wand under the table as the man approached. He did not ask her name; she did not ask his. Goyle.

"Evenin'."

Lena nodded carefully.

"Ya' know, the kids He's recruiting these days," the man mumbled under his breath, clearly underestimating her power.

"A wizard's power is in his mind, not his body."

Goyle recoiled at her snap, just ever so slightly.

He laughed, "Little headstrong from someone so young."

 _SNAP._

He was gone.

Lena searched with her feet for something under the table, wondering why he had come here instead of the forbidden forest. She checked the time, she had only a minute. Which was more than enough time to get there.

She sat there and finished a drink that she had brought for herself: Lena usually tried to avoid drinking anything from such unsanitary conditions, but tonight was a special occasion.

 _SNAP._

Lena left the Hog's Head empty once again, except for the solitary bartender.

She realized that she had not even thought of where she was going, but instead, she had just appearated-which was incredibly unsafe. She must have had the forest on her mind, for she was in the deepest parts of it, just outside of Hogwarts grounds.

Goyle stood not more than five feet away. She could barely see his outline beneath the thick canopy of trees.

"I was given only these," he began, handing her a tiny scroll and glancing down to his feet, hardly noticable in the darkness.

She eyed the roll before taking it quickly.

"I only hope you succeed," he droned sarcastically.

"I only hope you make it home without splicing," she retorted, very seriously.

He winced at the thought. "Don't get your pretty little self killed."


	16. Chapter 16

Sixteen.

Goyle was gone.

"Lumos!" she whispered. Exactly where Goyle had stood, there was a black briefcase.

There were no notes on the briefcase telling Lena where it would be delivered, and she knew better than to open something that the Dark Lord was sending.

She looked to the small scroll that Goyle had given her.

 _Wait for further instructions in Knockturn Alley._

SNAP.

Clutching the briefcase just in time, she stood in Knockturn Alley. Her mind was occupied with Blaise, and his rugged, dark handsome look. But as soon as she thought of Blaise, she immediately strayed to the loneliness without a best friend, without Draco.

Though Lena had only been standing there for less than a minute, a shopkeeper's eyes lurked over to her from inside his store. He was wiping grime around on the windows in what seemed like an excuse to keep himself busy, because he certainly wasn't cleaning any glass.

Suddenly, Lena had the urge to open to briefcase, to look inside and she what clues there might be on who it was for. She immediately pushed that thought out of her mind. _It's the Dark Lord, he wouldn't be sending anything I would want to look at._

 _Or would he?_

The powerful weapons that he would be sending around to his most faithful Death Eaters, and he was trusting it in the hands of Lena. Maybe this was a gift for her, if she would become his Queen.

She grimaced at his not so attractive appearance. Though, despite his appearance, the _power_ she would gain from that, just being with him.

Lena needed a quiet place to look more closely at the briefcase, and a place where no one would see that she was opening it. It was for this reason exactly that Lena choose that store, with the man wiping the windows. The hand that held her briefcase was sweating from her tight grip.

The door was open. Late hours did not exist in Knockturn Alley.

"Good evening, miss."

"Evening, sir." She nodded and proceeded to the back of the store, where the man was likely to follow.

"I don't believe I've seen you here before."

"I don't believe I have either," she retorted.

She set the briefcase between her legs. She felt an immediate release.

Pausing to look at the small, evil looking rings on the table, Lena picked up the briefcase and walked to the back of the store, where there were nicer looking dress robes in all shades. She was surprised, many of the stores here did not have nice looking things to wear.

 _Trying on a dress robe would be the perfect excuse to be away from this man. To open this in private._

"Sir, a deep violet dress robe, please."

He grabbed several quick measurements and handed her a robe, pointing her in the direction of dressing rooms. He seemed to hint that he would be waiting when she came out to tailor.

Inside the dressing room with a curtained door, Lena knelt on the floor, setting the robe and the briefcase on the bench in front of her.

She held the case on both sides, preparing to open the two locks, preparing to see what was exposed in the dim light of the dressing room-

"Miss?" the man outside inquired, knocking on the framework of the dressing rooms. "Is the size okay?"

Lena's hands shot to the dress robe to cover the case.

 _What was I doing?_ Lena inquired. Her memory was foggy. _The Dark Lord wouldn't send anything that should be opened by someone of stature. Especially through someone who hasn't been given a dark mark yet._ She peeked at the case underneath the robe. One of the latches had opened in flurry of cloth. _Or possibly I did it_ , she realized. She snapped it shut once again, regaining herself.

 _Of course, the Dark Lord is testing his ability to trust me, by seeing if I open a case that is not meant for me._

Lena shook her head, shocked that she had not noticed the radiance of a powerful spell coming from the case.

"Miss?" the man outside inquired again.

"One moment," she panted hastily.

She withdrew a shirt from her purse and she fashioned a thick bow around the handle so she avoid touching the briefcase again.

She bought the dress robe quickly without trying it on, and left in a hurry, leaving the man a rather large tip. He was gleaming as she strode out the door.

She glanced at her watch.

10:34, It gleamed wickedly.

She was missing the ball. She was missing her chance to be with Blaise, missing her chance to spite Draco. She scowled.

It made it easier to wait on the bench when she reminded herself once again, that after tonight, she was merely one step closer.

The alley was quiet, though several stores were still open, lights streaming out only to cobblestone from the pavement.

Occasionally, a passerby nodded at Lena, though many minded their own business; which is how Lena liked it in Knockturn Alley. With the items available there, you don't know what kinds of people will turn up. _There are more evil and sick people than Muggles_ , she reminded herself.

10:55

Lena checked the briefcase once again. It sat next to her. She did not touch it. She admired the Dark Lord's cunning, and advanced wizardry. How easily she had been fooled by something so obvious.

Each time Lena closed her eyes for more than a second, her hand grasped the handle of the suitcase more tightly. She was growing tired quickly.

Sometimes- and she almost swore it was intentional- her fingers strayed to the black leather, and touched it so lightly, just to feel the Dark Lord's power run through her veins. Each time she did this, her was filled with renewed energy, driving away her sleepiness.

It became rather addicting. Lena continued to touch the briefcase longer, and longer until-

"What the-" she scolded at herself as she, once again, found herself just seconds from opening the case. Feeling rather annoyed with herself, and ashamed that she had been so aloof, Lena snapped the briefcase clasps shut and went back to sitting, just holding the handle, and watching herself very carefully to make sure that her mind was not taken over again.

11:58

Lena narrowed her eyes. Was that the time? She could not stop looking. How had so much time passed in just that last ten minutes?

 _I must have fallen asleep..._

Unearthed by the experience and still trying to determine what had actually happened, Lena heard footsteps coming down the alley once more. She looked at the figure. It stopped in front of her, swiftly turning to face her.

She recognized the hooded figure; he gestured for her to follow. She obeyed quickly, tightly holding the handle of the briefcase.

"We have needed to talk desperately for quite some time, Lena."

Lucius.


	17. Chapter 17

Seventeen.

"Why is that, Lucius?" She muttered from behind him.

He lead her into a small coffee shop. They were not greeted or disturbed as they sat in the most discreet table. She raised her eyebrows as she sat across from him, waiting for his explanation.

Truth was, Lena loved Lucius like a father. She'd seen as much of him as she had of her own father. But since the things that had happened with Draco (since he became uninterested in her and bedazzled by Pansy), she'd rather hated all Malfoy's.

"I _am_ here to help you finish your task. But before that, I need to stress the urgency that you prepare Draco. The Dark Lord sees that you are not following his orders. This engenders a fury within him. Completing three petty tasks does not make a Death Eater, a Death Eater, Lena."

"He is preoccupied with something more important to him than the Dark Lord, Lucius."

"I do not care anything of your romances with Draco-"

"Miss Parkinson's romances with Draco," she corrected.

Lucius Malfoy grimaced. "Parkinson?"

Lena made a joke to herself that he was imagining the children that could come out of that.

There was a minute pause. "The Dark Lord will not distinguish between you following orders and Draco refusing. Do your very best to train him, Lena, even if he chooses to be with Pansy Parkinson-" He grimaced again. "-just try to not let romances get in the way of the Dark Lord."

Lena nodded. "Of course, Lucius. I will not fail." She wondered if she was lying. Perhaps she was not trying as hard as she would be if Draco were not with Parkinson, or if Lena could ignore that minor detail.

"Good. Now, Lena, here is the address for that package. Congratulations on passing your first task." He paused to smile with pride. "Just deliver it, and come to Godric's Hollow."

 _SNAP._

As she read the address and walked out onto the streets of London, she flagged down a taxi. "Baker Street, please, near 79th."

Lena messed around with a muggle cellphone that her parents had gotten her over the summer. Of course, it did not work in Hogwarts, so the only time she got to play with the electric device was on vacation and during the summer. However, it made her look like a normal fifteen-year-old from London, so she played a bubble blasting game for the half-an-hour drive.

She dropped the phone in her purse, knowing that she would not be able to find it again without dumping the bag out. She reached inside and withdrew a wad of bills. She tossed several bills with 20's on them at the man, without even dealing with getting the right change back. Muggles chose the most confusing way to deal with their expenses.

She walked out onto 79th Avenue and walked down several blocks. The taxi sped off behind her. She removed the shirt, left the briefcase standing blatantly outside of the door, and rang the doorbell. She ran to the nearest bush, and hid behind it.

A muggle man, who seemed very angry that he'd been aroused during the early morning hours, looked down at the case, picked it up and brought it inside. Lena walked back down the London Avenue, not quite feeling safe enough to appearate. She felt someone's eyes on the hairs of her back. She sped up her pace and crossed the street.

BOOOOOM.

Lena jolted forward as the explosion went off, landing face-first on the pavement. She stood and jogged to an alley, away from the surrounding crowd that was emerging from other homes, apartments, and off of Baker street.

As she entered into complete darkness-

 _SNAP._

"I hope there weren't any streetlight cameras," she began out loud, before she realized that she was standing in the middle of a Death Eaters circle.

She was embarrassed. Every face shown at her through the dark eyes of their masks. Her cheeks blushed brilliant red. She wondered if they could tell in the fireside light.

Her heart pumped hard and she felt very weak, her legs like jello, as she solemnly walked to the edge into the only opening, next to the Dark Lord. His snake like eyes pierced her like fangs. She couldn't take it- she looked away.

"Lena, Lena, Lena, my most faithful-" The entire crowd of Death Eaters stances changed a bit, anticipating that he would call her the most faithful servant- which definitely was not true. "-Death Eater apprentice." Only the parent Death Eaters did not relax their stances.

She wanted desperately to look around the circle, to find Lucius. She knew that Draco was standing next to him, yet it had taken her until now to realize this. They were the only two apprentices which were present.

"Lena," the Dark Lord continued. "You're beautiful, you're talented, you're brilliant. I am so pleased you have chosen this as your path in life. You are sure to help our cause extensively."

 _So, he already has plans for me then?_ She thought.

 _Why yes, yes, he does._

Lena's eyes shot out of space and straight into Voldemort's eyes. She had forgotten that he could do that. She was careful not to shoot up a shield in her mind. For the Dark Lord might think she was hiding something.

"And now only two more tasks remain of you before your initiation. Let me explain this to you, Miss Yavari, this course you have chosen in life _will demand sacrifice."_

Lena nodded.

"So now, let the fun and games begin!" the Dark Lord shouted.

The swish of the cloaks surrounded her as everyone disappeared.

And they were all gone, except for her and Draco, of course.


	18. Chapter 18

Eighteen.

Lena looked deep in Draco's eyes. She could see the gray eyes illuminated by the fire. They reflected and sparkled. He began to walk closer to her. Her heart kept speeding up each step he took closer. He stopped halfway.

She wanted him to take her in his strong arms, hold her tightly and kiss her all over, and lay her down right here and-

"Baby, come here."

 _Baby?_

 _BABY?_

Lena's eyes narrowed furiously. "What the bloody hell do you think you're doing, Draco- cheating on Parkinson? Have some respect for yourself and for her!"

Draco backed away slowly. "We...er...we just broke up!"

Lena narrowed her eyes dangerously.

 _SNAP._ Draco was gone.

 _Blaise._

 _SNAP._

The ten minute walk to Hogwarts from the gates wasn't bad. Lena enjoyed the short time to herself. She knew it was the early morning hours, though she wondered where Draco had run off to so quickly. She cursed that the Dark Lord had scheduled all this on a school night. Her eyes were drooping uncontrollably. As she hit the pillow, she was out.

* * *

Lena awoke to giggling, which she had found was her least favorite way to wake up. It immediately sent Lena into a pissed off mood, lasting all day.

 _Damn it, Parkinson._

Pansy felt her glare before Lena had made a sound. She immediately ceased what she was saying. The other Slytherin girls followed nobly after Pansy out of the dormitory.

She wondered why she was so unpopular among the Slytherin girls for a moment, but realized that it only made her more upset. So, she thought of Blaise as she got herself ready in the normal, disgusting, small bathrooms for all of the first years that hadn't figured out about the prefects bathrooms or the seventh year Head Students bathrooms around the school.

The sun had barely risen by the time Lena walked down the stairs elegantly to the common room. Blaise waited for her patiently at the bottom. He smiled brilliantly, showing every one of his perfect teeth. She took his outstretched arm.

"It's a shame you couldn't be at the ball until the end."

"Yes, shame," Lena replied shortly.

"I'm joking. Draco isn't at all happy about us. Especially now that we're official."

"I can see that. Draco hasn't always been the best at controlling his temper."

Her brain raked through everything she knew about Draco. It was so much. All of the memories. Her best friend since childhood. In fact, her only friend.

She sat at the Slytherin breakfast table, sitting far enough away from Draco, Pansy, and the rest of them so that she could enjoy her breakfast in peace...

 _But, let's face it, when a day is off to a bad start, it only gets worse, right?_

"So, you look tired, Lena. Long night last night?"

Before Lena even began to answer, she heard it.

"What. A. Slut."

Lena threw her plate with the back of her hand and a twist of her fingers, and it went straight for Parkinson's face. The banging of the metal echoed through the Great Hall, and everyone turned, just in time, to see the plate smack Pansy in the face, and knock her backwards out of the bench.

"I'll fucking KILL YOU, bitch!" Pansy screamed, sounding very much like a lunatic from a real-life TV show in the muggle world.

Pansy was off the ground in seconds, Lena withdrew her wand, preparing for battle, but did not anticipate Pansy to jump fifteen feet through the air like a maniacal demon and tackle Lena to the ground.

"CATFIGHT!" A younger boy yelled loudly, and everyone was swarming to see the commotion. No teachers were in the Great Hall besides Professor Flickwick, and he wouldn't be able to shove his way through the crowd. However, she knew that the lack of professors wouldn't last very long.

Pansy was pulling Lena's hair with one hand and punching her with the other. Lena threw Pansy off of her and began to punch her with both hands, her eyes were blurred with sweat or blood, she could not tell, she was punching furiously, as much as she could, and suddenly she felt someone drawing her away- she struggled to keep going, to keep punching.

Pansy landed one more kick on Lena, a high kick that planted Pansy's heel right in her nose.

The sickening snap echoed in her ears; she felt the pool of hot blood pouring over her lips; Lena dropped to her knees. Her wand still withdrawn, Lena pointed and thought some very powerful words, looking Pansy directly in the eyes.

Everything turned black and Lena crashed sideways onto her shoulder.


	19. Chapter 19

Nineteen.

Lena awoke and refused to open her eyes to the bright room that she saw beneath her lids. The orange glow was painful enough as is. Her breathing was easy, she tried to remember what had happened, though nothing after her blackout filled her mind.

How long have I been out?

She felt her lips moving before she had even thought the question.

"Just a couple hours."

Lena opened her eyes cheerfully at his voice. Blaise.

"She's not awake yet, though. You were definitely the winner of that one, hot stuff."

"Don't call me hot stuff."

Lena looked into his red eyes, searching for something that she could not find in their endlessness.

"By the way..." He gestured at the table next to her. "But I have to get to class, lunch is almost over."

"See ya," Lena muttered.

"Bye, babe."

Blaise kissed her on the cheek gently.

Lena sat there for a while, feeling the warm impression on her cheek, touching the burning spot over and over again. She looked over to find a stack of papers that Blaise had gestured to. She closed her eyes, praying that she had not just seen what she had just seen.

She opened them.

There were at least 100 pages that had piled up within the "couple hours". She immediately assumed that Blaise was lying. However, she found that at the top was a note:

 _Miss Yavari,_

 _Your actions have been more than inappropriate. I must unfortunately inform you, instead of yelling it at you myself, through this letter of your punishments._

 _First and foremost, one hundred and fifty points from Slytherin for each person involved in the fight._

 _I regretfully assign you to the task of cleaning trophies every Friday and Saturday evening, until each and every single one of them have been cleaned on every square inch._

 _In addition, you will have the privilege of writing a thirty page essay on The Repercussions of Fighting. Due one week from now, Monday morning in your Advanced Transfiguration class. However, each time that this essay is done inadequately, it must be redone, and the page assignment will be doubled._

 _I have done the favor of getting all of your work for your morning and afternoon classes, which will be completed by tomorrow morning and given to each of your teachers before afternoon classes begin._

 _Sincerely,_

 _Professor McGonagall_

"Fuck."

Lena stood, getting a sudden rush of blood to her head. She looked down at herself, and found herself looking rather _Raggedy Ann_. A few spells quickly fixed this, and, trusting her magic very much so, walked out of the hospital wing, without even checking out. She found herself stuck behind the crowd of slackers that was already late for class.

"Did you hear about that?"

"What?"

Lena casually eavesdropped on two Ravenclaws in front of her.

"About Lena Yavari and Pansy Parkinson going at it?"

"Who hasn't heard? Those two skanks hate each other's guts. Won't be long before they duel it to the death."

"Why can't they each just pick one and stop being greedy? With two of the hottest Slytherin guys down their throats, you'd think that'd keep 'em happy."

"Eh, who cares, though? Really."

The two entered Ancient Runes, while Lena slyly walked on.

Lena returned to the empty Slytherin common room, feeling extremely pissed off at the rumors going on about her.

 _Who do they think they are, acting better than me? I'm a Yavari. And not only that, I'm almost a Death Eater. I would love to see those girls say something about me when I finally get my Death Eater mask and Dark Mark._

Lena had the desire to leave Hogwarts.

She knew that the teachers kept better track of it at daytime than at nighttime, however, she had no reason to leave on sudden notice.

Considering that Dumbledore knew that she was leaving-which he did- she knew it would be unwise when she had no expected places of going and also being on watch by the headmaster.

 _I'd better just save my chances for getting away until it's more important._

* * *

Standing at the edge of the Great Lake, Lena looked down at her reflection. Her bright green eyes and her long blonde hair. She watched as the separate strands blew in opposite directions.

"Lena? May I join you?"

Draco.

She lowered her head in disappointment; wanting only for him to draw her close in his strong arms.

"Of course," she said softly.

"I'm sorry about last night. I messed up. Look, I know we're going through kind of a weird phase right now, Lena, but, in the end, you're the only person I want to wake up next to me every morning. The only person I want to hold hands with as I kill people and gain power."

Lena cracked a smile. "How romantic..."

"You know it's true."

"That I do," she agreed.

Draco sat at the edge of the large tree. Lena sat next to him.

"Have you ever wondered if maybe if we were muggles, we'd have a better chance of being together?"

Lena rolled her eyes. "Draco, you are by far the most ignorant man I have ever met in my life. Of course that's false, because we were very much so _made_ to be married and continue the family tradition. There really isn't a lot of good blood left out there."

She looked in his eyes and enjoyed the long pause of comfort.

He shrugged. "I love you, Lena... but-"

Lena dropped her eyes. _But?_

"But I don't know. Don't you desire more than just being my friend?"

Lena looked at Draco for a long time, making him uncomfortable with her stare. She stood, and stepped in front of him before walking away slowly. She looked back and whispered, "No."


	20. Chapter 20

Twenty.

* * *

Draco's POV

* * *

Lena suddenly stood and began to walk away from him. She turned around to say something.

"..." He heard nothing, but he saw as her lips mouthed, "No," and she turned away and walked away. Draco was stunned. He sat there for a long time thinking of her, of her elegant beauty, and of her high pride, which he was surprised he was even attracted to.

Everything about Lena attracted him. Hell, dating Pansy had started out as only to make her jealous and want to actually date him or do something with him. However, until Lena was ready for that kind of stuff, Pansy would have to suffice. An overwhelming sense of guilt filled him.

Her answer to his question burned in his mind. Was it possible that she did not love him enough to want a serious relationship with him?

Draco suddenly saw Blaise meet Lena casually as she was walking away from Draco. They held hands and quickly kissed each other-so shyly- and began to stroll around the lake.

He punched the ground next to him.

 _I hate you, Blaise. I told you she was mine. I told you not to fuck with me. I warned you, man._

* * *

Lena's POV

* * *

Provoking Draco satisfied Lena. She loved the butterflies that swarmed over her body gently...

 _Or maybe that's just Blaise._

She looked in his eyes and stopped at the edge of the lake as it entered the forest, far out of sight from Draco.

She withdrew her wand and conjured a blanket on the ground for the two of them to sit on.

"Blaise," she muttered.

"Yeah?"

Lena looked into his eyes, into their blackness and the red seeping around the edges of his iris.

She couldn't help herself, she leaned forward and gave Blaise a passionate kiss. A stunned second later, he joined the snogging.

She wrapped her arms tightly around him, loving how his big hands held the small of her back, pushing her closer to him, pulling her on top of him.

* * *

Draco's POV

* * *

Draco crept through the brush, ever quietly, trying to catch the two lovers unexpectedly.

Beginning to get frustrated, Draco was careful not to lose his touch. He had to be quieter than he had ever been in his life. He forgot to breathe.

The edge of the plaid blanket was visible. Then, he saw it.

 _Ugh, disgusting. Sucking face for all to see._

He paused to take a slow, short breath. Anger filled him with the air. His pulse sped up and his adrenaline surged through him. He wanted to kill him. He wanted to torture Blaise, beat the living shit out of him for how he was touching _his_ girl.

He was moving closer, less than fifty feet away under the dark canopy of the forest.

 _Blaise's girl,_ Draco realized suddenly, stopping in his tracks.

The worst thing that could have possibly happened, happened. Draco cursed himself.

* * *

Blaise's POV

* * *

A hallow echo of a twig snapping filled the silent fall day.

Immediately, Lena and Blaise shot up, looking for the culprit that was creeping around in the forest.

Nothing. Not a movement, not another sound; and yet Blaise knew who it had been.

He looked at Lena, wondering if she knew as well. He immediately realized the clever girl had probably known he was there before he had even made the sound.

 _Draco is up to something. Something more than_ trying _to kick my ass this time._

In all honesty, Blaise knew he had lost the fight with Draco, however, the aspect of surprise does that. And his egotistical mind conveniently made up his excuses. He wondered if he could beat Draco in a fair fight. He let his egotistical mind handle that one too.

"What a sneaking bastard," she whispered to him with her soft velvet voice.

"You're so beautiful, Lena." He gazed over to long blonde hair, green eyes, slender body, and her now blushing red cheeks. "You think he's gone now?" He continued.

Her voice like a gentle ripple in the lake, "No." He couldn't help but stare at her.

He kissed her on the cheek and stood, offering a hand to Lena.

* * *

Lena's POV

* * *

Lena took the offered hand and stood.

The two walked back to Hogwarts slowly. In the common room, Draco was taking advantage of a giggling Pansy Parkinson on the couch, which Lena now considered contaminated and would have the house elves clean immediately; either that, or never sit on it again. Whichever.

She kissed Blaise on the lips, and explained of the massive pile of homework. Blaise respectfully declined her offer of sitting with her in the library for the next twelve hours to watch her work.

With her stuffed messenger bag, Lena headed to the library.

She sat at her usual table and got to work.

She finished all the easy assignments first. The small, single digit essays from each of her teachers. She had the strange feeling that Professor McGonagall had convinced the teachers to give her more homework because of what she did.

Three hours pass...

At the bottom of her daily school assignments was Professor Snape's pile. A letter attached to the top.

 _Miss Yavari,_

 _I have missed you our last several sessions of Advanced Potions. However, I understand you are very_ busy _lately, so I will_ advise _that you continue your work in every aspect of your life. We will continue our lessons after the Holiday season._

 _Severus Snape_

The hidden message Snape had sent her was very clear.

Lena knew she needed to stop stalling, but how was she supposed to get Draco off of Parkinson?

Shaking her head, Lena got back to work, hoping to finish within the next few hours, though, writing thirty pages of bullshit for Professor McGonagall-who would read each and every word- now that would take time.

Snape clearly gave her the shortest amount of homework.

 _No more or less than one page on the effects, attributes, uses, and regions to find troglodyte oil._

Four hours later, her thirty page masterpiece was complete, it was by far the most difficult task she'd ever completed for school.

She dried the ink on the last page with her wand, packed it all away in her bag, and stood. She first went to Professor McGonagall's office. The candlelit hallway had more of a breeze than usual, several of the flames had blown out. Lena knocked.

"Enter."

The woman was sitting in her chair, grading that day's papers.

"Ah, Lena. You're mistaken. Miss Parkinson came by earlier for the same reason, thirty pages was not a mistake, you really must write that many."

"Actually, I was not mistaken." She withdrew the essay from her bag and neatly placed it on her desk, along with the ten pages of Transfiguration homework. "I know how serious you are about these things." Lena droned sardonically.

McGonagall, who dropped her jaw in amazement, clearly shocked that Lena had finished the essay at all. Finally, she clenched her jaw and it creased into a smile.

"You know, Lena," she simpered with pride, "You kind of remind me of myself as a teenager."

Lena laughed in her head, struggling to keep herself from laughing aloud. "Thank you, Professor McGonagall," she replied, faking her sincerity.

Nodding, the professor gestured her out of the room, and Lena left with a nod.

Delivering the rest of her work around the castle took a little over an hour, and finally, she was at her last stop, in the basement in front of Professor Snape's office. She knocked.

He opened it immediately, shrugging her in. He sat at his desk. Lena took the seat across from him.

"You got my message?"

"I did, Severus."

"So you see the severity of what you must do?"

"Of course."

Lena took out the page essay for him. He smiled.

"You know, Professor McGonagall told me to make sure I knew you were being punished."

"I don't even deserve to be punished at all," Lena began smugly.

"Lena, do you realize that these kinds of things are not to be happening so close to your initiation. The Dark Lord does not need a skittish follower, nor does he want one. You must be omniscient and mature these next few months, your life may depend on it."

"Are the tasks always the same?" It was a stupid question, but Lena wanted comfort.

"No."

Enjoying the long silence of thought, Lena asked another question. "How do I control someone's mind, invade it and move in my own thoughts?"

"Ah. I'm glad I was expecting this question after you asked about reading minds. Now, Lena, it is very important that you wait to attempt this in any form until after your initiation. Especially in confidential places, though it is extremely difficult to catch with a skilled witch or wizard." Severus winked. "Of course, you must begin by entering their mind, and being careful not to be detected; you must push their thoughts around to hide your own presence... Well, here's a book all about it." Snape began searching in a trunk for a few minutes before Lena continued.

"How do I become as good as the Dark Lord?"

"The Dark Lord has had many more years of practice than you, Lena. You will probably never reach what he has become."

Lena doubted that. She'd be his second in command soon, she was sure he liked her that much...

 _But perhaps I am not, perhaps Lucius has claimed his place with more than intelligence. He's created it with his faithfulness._

"Go get some sleep, Lena, you look deprived. You'll need your rest more than ever." He stood from his kneel and held the book out to Lena.

Lena nodded, exited and walked back to the Slytherin common room. She diddled with her wand in her hand and thought of Draco, and his perfection, his handsomeness, his ruggedness, his evilness- his current situation with Lena.

She was a zombie by the time she passed out on her bed.


	21. Chapter 21

Twenty-One

Lena awoke early the next morning. The clock's hands read three o'clock. She crept to the foot of her bed. She was used to avoiding the creaky spots; she had done this hundreds of times. She unlocked and opened her trunk silently.

Reaching into a silk bag, she withdrew a small black magically powered bug. After placing it near her ear, it creepily crawled into a shadowed crevice.

Taking her days clothing, her cloak and her wand, Lena went down the stairs slowly. She wore only a skimpy nightgown and a dark bottle-green cloak.

Ten minutes later, Lena was in front of the seventh year bathrooms. She spoke the password, "Matolus," a magical root which, when eaten, made wrinkles and signs of aging disappear. Most of this plant had be harvested out in the early 1900's. However, a wizard who ate too much of the plant lost his magic slowly. Lena cursed her knowledge as she entered.

She walked down one of the four hallways, which crossed diagonally from the door. At the end of her typical hall, there was a massive portrait of Salazar Slytherin. She knew for a fact that the seventh years were far too busy to be taking showers this close to midterms.

Choosing a room at the end, she entered.

The door closed behind her, and she was presented with a small room, which had a tub as big as a hot tub, and handle sprayers clamped on the four corners. The room was a deep green with silver lining. Green and silver towels were laid out in front of a portrait of a snake, which watched her closely as she stripped nude. She faced the snake and walked toward it. It moved its eyes shyly down her body.

 _What kind of pervert decorator puts in this kind of shit?_

Lena began to fill the tub, and selected a few scents she knew blended well together. Stripping from her little clothes, she slowly dipped her foot into the water until her entire body besides her head was submerged. She turned to gaze at the painting of the snake for what seemed like a long while.

Suddenly, causing Lena to yelp, the snake crawled down from the portrait. She jumped from the water, and it began to back her into the corner. It crawled up her leg slowly, entangling chains came from the ceiling, clasping her hands above her. The snake was wrapping up her leg and around her naked body, before it stopped, just when it's face was right in hers. Horrified, Lena screamed again for help. But nobody would hear through the thick castle walls. She looked into the snakes eyes and she knew who entrapped her.

Lena looked at Lord Voldemort, and as she thought his name, a young, handsome, naked Tom Riddle appeared in front of her and the snake disappeared, his arms still wrapped around her-

Lena awoke in the tub, still naked, though the water was still warm. She looked around her. Her heart pulsed quickly from what had happened in her dream. There were no shackles hanging from the roof, however, the spell was so simple an intelligent mudblood could do it. The room was empty and the picture of snake now looked different, it was hanging atop a tree, looking the opposite direction.

It had seemed so real. Lena wondered if it had been.

 _What if he...?_ Lena had the feeling in her stomach that more than what she remembered had happened, and the more she thought about it, the more she knew for a fact that that snake wasn't normal.

Frightened by the horrifying experience-however secretly Lena had enjoyed it, the terror and the sexy Dark Lord-she was determined to find out, even if it was from the Dark Lord himself.

Lena looked at the time, it was barely after four.

She quickly cleaned her pruned skin, and got out of the tub. After dressing, Lena hurried to the library, not bothering to magically dry her hair.

Inside of the library, she lit her wand and began her hurried search. Many books interested her, she looked into many books on the mysteries of magical portraits. She took the stack of four books to a couch and began to look.

It didn't take long to find the answer. And she discovered that the answer was the same in each books.

 _A wizard or witch may put a spell on a certain favorite portrait, allowing the portrait to entrap its onlookers with anything from his or her worst nightmares, to their most secret fantasies..._

 _Many onlookers in the past have become obsessed, and cannot escape their addiction to visiting certain portraits, which give them what they want in life more easily than it is obtained..._

 _This spell was made illegal in much of wizarding Europe in the early 1500's, though few enchanted portraits remain scattered and hidden..._

The last book was black, and only had silver printing that read, _Dark Portraits._

 _A Dark Portrait is one that is created by a dark wizard, who causes himself great sacrifice and pain in order to create said portrait. A Dark Portrait can only be made with three crucial items. The paint is mixed with his blood, the frame must be made from the nearly nonexistent tree of knowledge (or enchanted whaletree root[now extinct]), only three meadows remain in the world. And the third item is a piece of the beholders soul..._

 _A Dark Portrait is very different from a bewitched portrait, which became illegal in the 1500's. This is because the portrait itself will leak from its canvas, spilling its scene into the room. While a bewitched portrait only entraps the onlookers mind, a Dark Portrait entraps a person in the flesh-_

Slamming the book shut, Lena had had enough. She only desired to forget the entire experience.

The girl magically made herself look good and went into the Great Hall, which was already buzzing with students. A loud rambling filled her ear, it grew louder and louder until her ears rang. Lena jerked the bug out of her ear. She put him on her shoulder and sat at the Slytherin table.

Millicent Bullstrode sat in front of her.

"You're all right, you are."

Lena narrowed her eyes at the giant.

"You don't scare me, skinny." The comment almost caused Lena to smirk; she withheld it.

"Why am I all right, then?" The incident this morning clouded her mind, she longed for Millicent to shut up.

"That lil' Parkinson bitch 'as been spreading rumors about me for five years. I 'ave barely seen you for five years, suddenly all she talks about is you. Make sense?" Millicent spoke with a slow drone, which bored Lena to tears. She stuffed her face as she talked, and crumbs spilled in front of her disgustingly; Lena had the urge to vomit.

She picked at a piece of toast that she placed on her plate. It was growing colder by the second. She looked at Millicent who was awaiting her answer.

"Uh, yeah."

Lena took a bite of the toast. She kept her mouth politely stuffed the rest of the meal, which Millicent spent gaining an acquaintance. By the end of the meal, Lena spoke. "You're all right, you are."

Millicent laughed and left the Great Hall.

It was still too early in the morning for Blaise to be up. Classes didn't start till nine. And, without Millicent distracting her, Lena relived the incident earlier that morning repeatedly, sometimes finishing it in acquaintance with her own fantansies...until Draco arrived, Pansy-less. He sat next to Lena and filled his plate with meaty goods.

"Quidditch Practice this morning. Game on Saturday. Will you be there?" he said in between bites.

Disgusted, Lena replied anyway. "Possibly, however, tonight, I expect you to keep your slut at a distance-"

"Only if you keep yours at one."

"You wouldn't care so much if you weren't a filthy spy." Their tones escalated steadily.

"Spy? Since when?"

"Do you honestly think I am ignorant of your actions, Draco?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

The Ravenclaw table had stopped eating to look at the commotion, which, if this continued, would make Lena the talk of the day two times in a row.

Lena looked in Draco's eyes and saw a flare. She was immediately attracted, she stood from the table and rushed out of the Great Hall. After leaving the Great Hall, she was running to the basement, she heard Draco's footsteps behind her and she entered her old broom-closet. She had almost closed the door, when Draco put his hand in the way and pushed the door open easily, despite the fact that Lena was using all of her strength.

"Wha-?" Lena began as he shut and locked the door behind him.

He slammed her into a wall and began making out with her furiously, she began to kiss him passionately back, slowly turning him around, he had almost let her take control when he easily swooped her back against the bricks, so that he held her shoulders pressed hard against the cold castle wall. He pressed his entire body against hers, still kissing her with expertise.

The kiss ended and Draco's lips traveled to her neck, brushing small kisses.

"I love you, Lena."

"I love you too, Draco." Lena gasped as he sucked ruthlessly on her neck. She felt the hickey forming but she couldn't tell him to stop, she didn't want him to stop. He abruptly bit her, hard, leaving a huge mark so that Blaise would see. She knew that was his purpose. Lena collapsed onto him as he unclamped his teeth, he pushed Lena back against the wall. Withdrawing his wand, he muttered a few words over the hickey.

"So you can't heal it with magic..." He explained with a smirk. Lena still heaved to catch her breath.

The girl yelped in pain as he bit down one last time. She looked at Draco with terrified, wide eyes. He looked at her body, and finally into her eyes. He moved his hands underneath her shirt and up to her bra. He undid the bra, which unclasped from the front. He felt her chest as though he owned her. Lena pleaded with her eyes for him to stop. She pushed his arms down.

"Please, Draco, stop." She demanded as his hands were lowering to inside of her pants.

She gasped as his hand slowly came closer to her waistline. He pressed his hand against her skin, threatening to go lower.

"You like it, baby," his voice coaxed.

"Stop, Draco. Please," she repeated to him, her voice was barely a whisper. But for some reason, she did not speak up or move to push him away. Deep down, she was afraid of him, afraid of how he would react. Or the burning desire she'd kept hidden for years was bubbling to the surface.

Her fear only pleased him. He smirked. The tips of his fingers slowly moved underneath the waistline. Lena began to try to push him away, push his hands away. Her subtle pushing was retaliated with high force. Draco pushed her shoulders deep into the wall. Lena squealed with the immediate slam of pain.

"I'm with Blai-"

His mouth moved her ear. She struggled to move an inch.

He began sucking on her ear, making her whole body release and cringe in pleasure. He bit down and Lena cried out. "You're mine, Lena Yavari. Don't forget that."

Draco kissed her again lightly on the lips, and she allowed him; she wondered if she even had a choice. He left the room before she could mention that she needed to train him or the Dark Lord would kill her.

She knew that Draco had anger problems, but she had no idea that they were that bad. She knew that it must have been what he saw from the forest that had upset him. Lena began to collect herself.

Lena immediately felt sorry for Draco. She knew everything about him, and especially about his home life. He had a lot of things to be angry at. His parents-mainly his father. His stolen childhood.

Still, Draco kept his temper at a balance when he was with Lena. He seemed to always want to look calm and collected. He'd rarely been mad at her during their lives. Now he was furious that she had chosen to date Blaise over him.

 _If he could have kept his hands off of that..ugh... It just might have worked out._

Wondering if Draco ever treated Parkinson like how she had just been treated, she began walking to the Slytherin common room, feeling envy at the thought of Draco giving Parkinson a hickey. Her shoulders hurt a little from the pressure, but Draco hadn't left a mark...at least, not on her shoulder blades.

Lena sat in front of the fireplace as the common room filled up. Blaise walked down in his pajamas. Making sure Draco was no where in sight, he went up to Lena. She stood easily, ready for her morning kiss. Or second morning kiss.

"What the-" Blaise stopped in his tracks.


	22. Chapter 22

Twenty-Two

"What's that?" Blaise asked carefully.

"What's what?" Lena shrugged, trying to make him blow it off.

His eyes aimed directly on her neck. "That."

"Oh, uh." Raising her hand to cover and rub it with her palm. "It's nothing?"

She silently cursed Draco for making it so that it could not be healed with magic, ignoring the fact that she would have forgotten to spell it anyway.

"Who gave it to you? Draco? Are you sure you're ready to be in a relationship with me, Lena?"

"Honestly?"

She looked in his eyes for hostility; she found none. It was at this moment that she discovered the crucial difference between Blaise and Draco that would ultimately affect her life.

Blaise nodded.

"No, but you're attractive and nice, witty and funny; I wanted to date you for a long time, before I had to give up my childhood, and maybe give myself a chance to choose someone other than Draco." Lena leaned and whispered in his ear, "Give myself a chance to change the stars, change my course in life."

Lena felt the only true honesty she'd ever revealed to herself. The question of whether or not she wanted to be a Death Eater had been forgotten, and the last time she had asked herself, nearly five years ago, was only a foggy memory, clouded by the stress that controlled her mind. She wondered if lack of sleep was getting to her. Death Eater training was the most draining accomplishment she would ever complete. Yet, there was still so much to do before the Dark Lord would win his war, and there was still so much more work ahead, even after the initiation.

"I don't know what you're trying to say, Lena. But I'll ask you this again, Are you sure you're ready for this?"

"Yes. I am now."

In merely a few minutes of conversation, Blaise had persuaded her.

"You should know, that being with you cannot affect the orders that have been given to me. And one of those is to train Draco. I will be spending much time with him in the coming months."

Blaise nodded. Her statement did not please him in the slightest; she wondered what he was thinking. Wondering how kissing only two guys in five years had caused her such a problem.

"But I have to get to class early today, okay?"

Blaise nodded carefully, eyeing her.

She wanted to ask why he was acting so peculiar, but she knew it was the blooming red bruise on her neck, which would only get worse over the next few days- _at least everyone will think it's from Blaise...right?_

* * *

Blaise's POV

* * *

He wasn't sure if she was telling the truth. Lena's expression was almost always blank, except when she flashed her teeth in a smile, while even that rarely reached her eyes. Her demeanor held it's all too famous mystery. He knew that this is what attracted the other guys at Hogwarts. Nobody could get her. Except him.

Lena left Blaise with a kiss on his cheek and she walked quickly out of the common room. He couldn't help but feel betrayed. Even if he had won the challenge with Draco, even if he had Lena, Draco was still getting more from her than he was.

He left the common room, grabbing his broomstick with a quick, "Accio broom!" and, once outside, flew his broomstick to high over the Quidditch fields.

He found that this was the best spot to think in the mornings. A group of guys slowly formed over the next half-hour at the bottom corner of the field. He shot downward. The group scattered around him as he landed gracefully in the center.

"She looked so hot today..." One of them was saying.

"Who?" he inquired.

"Lena Yavari."

Blaise wondered if they'd seen her neck. Or if they knew who she was currently dating.

"If I was tappin' that shit, she'd smile more-"

"Nobody's ever been with her, dude. Ever..." One of the Ravenclaws interrupted.

"All the more tightness for me," Theodore Nott injected.

Everyone stopped talking to look at the scrawny boy. They all burst out laughing.

"She may like the intelligent type! Besides, I could bring her more pleasure than any of you. I'd lay her down all slow-like, and then surprise her when I whip it out, maybe _accidentally_ hit her in the face with it." He defended himself.

A Ravenclaw, Riley O'Heron stopped him through his laughter. "C'mon, man, it's Lena Fucking Yavari. It's the small-downstairs-type she doesn't like. She had higher standards than you in first year. She's one of those girls who needs a hundred-galleon meal to make her happy enough to sleep with someone. Like me, I'm a classy guy. I'll take her out to a nice dinner, and we can skip the movie because she'll be suckin' on the nine-iron." Riley gestured downwards with a subtle hint at his dick.

"Who knows, man," Nott replied, "All I know is she's the object of my dreams. And she might wanna tap 'dis some day." Imitating Riley, he gestured down.

Blaise had noticed how all of them grew quiet as Draco approached. Before Blaise had gotten the chance to say that he was dating her.

"Who might?" Draco was scowling with anger.

Everyone scattered but Blaise, Riley, and Nott. The three stood in a stupid silence.

"Who might?" Draco repeated, raising his voice.

Still nothing.

"Wrong answer."

A full blown fist fight broke out among the three. Blaise slowly backed off as Draco took on Nott and Riley by himself. Draco focused on Riley, it took several blows to his face before Riley began to lose fighting ability. All the other guys were watching from less than ten feet away. Nott was throwing useless pussy punches at Draco's rock hard abs. Two more punches.

The two of them where on the ground before he could say, 'Broomsticks.'

"Where the flying fuck do you think you're going, Zabini?" He stepped forward toward Blaise, threateningly raising his fist. Blaise did his best not to flinch.

Draco was an inch from his face.

"I'm not done with you, Tiny Zabini."

Everyone one of the guys laughed at Draco's new nickname for Blaise, but Draco shot a glare and maliciously tore his wand out of his back pocket, causing the still morning to go silent, slowly getting closer to Blaise.

 _Oh shit,_ was all that ran through Blaise's mind.


	23. Chapter 23

Twenty-Three

* * *

Draco's POV

* * *

Draco grabbed Blaise's collar of his shirt. He threw him back two feet and his head smashed into one of the tall Quidditch poles. His withdrew his wand and put it at Blaise's neck.

Glancing backwards, Riley had stood up and was now in the crowd of guys. Nott was still out cold on the ground.

Draco scowled and looked back at Blaise, his entire body shaking with anger.

 _He deserves to be taught a lesson for not defending his "_ so called" _girlfriend._

"You must think you're something, Zabini. Let me tell you, I hear a whole lot of talkin' shit, but I don't see any balls here."

There was a long silence. Many of the guys were clearly inching closer to hear what Draco was saying. He shot them a glance and they stopped looking entirely, hopped on their broomsticks, and began practicing.

Blaise gulped. He was clearly too scared to answer.

"Cat got your tongue?" Draco smirked.

He released Blaise for a second, and slammed him back into the pole.

"You disrespect her again, and I swear on my life, I'll fucking kill you. You understand that?" Draco spat with hostility.

Blaise nodded slowly, but he only seemed occupied with the pain, clearly seeping from his eyes. Draco only pressed harder into his neck.

Draco couldn't help himself. This is the second time Blaise would wake up in the hospital wing this year.

* * *

Lena's POV

* * *

Lena left Blaise in the common room as she began to look for Draco. She found him in none other than her closet...with Parkinson.

"Scram," she shouted at Pansy. The surprise of someone catching them caused her to jump and run out of the room. Lena walked in and closed the door behind her, locking it.

"Tonight, you have a lesson to learn the art of your craft, Draco. Meet me in the forbidden forest at midnight. Don't be late."

She left. She began to take a slow walk around the grounds. She stopped at the clear lake and sat at it's edge, removing her shoes and putting her feet in the chilly water.

All she could think of was Draco with Pansy intimately, and the boiling envy within in her veins. _In my broom closet..._ Her body burning with frustration and losing track of time, she watched as the sun rose higher and higher into the sky, warning her of the classes she would soon have to attend.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed her foot, Lena's legs shot out of the water with a gigantic splash.

A merman rose from her leg until he was face-to-face with Lena.

"You betray all that is right. You are in eminent danger. I see the through the blackness of your heart and the state of your mind, young one. Your decisions are crucial now, for what is important to you must be decided upon soon, or your choices will disappear."

His eyes were gleaming. She wondered if mermaids normally made predictions or if she was just having another one of her Lena-creature bonding experiences with all sorts of animals recently.

He disappeared in the dark cloud of waters below her. Lena replaced her shoes and began to walk again, slowly sucking the water from her drenched robes with her wand, as she made her way over the grassy hill, this time towards the Quidditch fields, where a practice game between Ravenclaw and Slytherin was going on.

And then, she saw it.

Screaming and running faster than she ever had in her life, she'd never forgive Draco for this. Not again. Draco turned around, away from Blaise. He didn't see her for a moment, and she saw he was smirking. Blaise was already on the ground, bleeding into the rough grass.

Draco looked at her with an odd expression that she could not decipher. She smacked him wildly across the face, and then ran to Blaise before Draco could respond; he stalked off.

"Blaise, are you okay?"

Every guy that was practicing Quidditch came to help her, all landing smoothly. A handsome Ravenclaw helped her get Blaise to sit up against the pole to get him off the ground. He was knocked out.

"Malfoy beat the shit outta him," Riley said, looking at Lena for a moment. She looked over at Blaise again and failed to see him eyeballing her cleavage.

She glared at the boy as he slacked on holding up Blaise, "Just hold him upright, will you?"

He did.

"Repairo, Ferula," she whispered under her breath.

Bandages wrapped around Blaise as the wounds began to close slowly.

"Let's get him to the hospital wing," somebody suggested.

Many of the boys began to move to help pick up Blaise off the ground, trying to show off their strength or something.

"Wingardium Leviosa. And you call yourselves wizards? He's fine."

Lena levitated him all the way back to his room, where she placed him delicately in his bed. She used her wand to clean his face and she drew her fingers threw his hair sedulously.

She left him there, praying that Draco wouldn't find him until he woke up.


	24. Chapter 24

Twenty-Four

* * *

Lena's POV

* * *

NOVEMBER

* * *

DECEMBER

* * *

Time passed slowly. Lena had detention with Pansy Parkinson for three hours every Friday and Saturday night for the entire month of November, which not only ruined her social life, it made the rest of the things in life harder, like not punching her in the face again as she was bragging about being a slut once again.

Draco met with her almost every other night, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. He spent the beginning of the week practicing spells in the forbidden forest until late in the night, and Sunday was spent learning new spells. He took the lessons as seriously as she did, never making a move to seduce her, or even touching her.

Her relationship with Blaise grew stronger and stronger. She spent most of every morning with him, and sat with him in all of the classes she shared with him. She slacked on homework and sleep, not managing as well as she could have if she wasn't in a relationship.

* * *

Draco's POV

* * *

Lena hated him. She hadn't been the same around him since she caught him beating up Blaise. She never looked into his eyes when she talked to him, just down at the book, or at the target location of the spell.

His relationship with Pansy dwindled, he rarely saw her, and he never fooled around with her anymore, though he still heard her bragging through the castle walls for most of her days.

"The Slytherin Prince," she called him. He liked that, just not from her.

He had seven crappy days a week, and only three good nights. He tried his hardest to make the lessons with Lena last as long as possible. He missed her.

Every time he saw her with Blaise, he thought of her snogging that scumbag who doesn't beat up guys that talk about her in dirty ways. Thinking about it repulsed him. Lena was his; she was the most vibrant and elegant creature he had ever beheld, and yet still these guys talked about her as though she were an object, or some dirty slut.

* * *

Blaise's POV

* * *

Draco left him alone. For once. Every day he felt the constant glare, the constant aura of hate. But he was never spoken to, never touched, never harmed.

Lena flashed her white smile at the breakfast table as she retold the story of detention the night before with Parkinson. All he could think about was what he was going to do when it was spring and the Quidditch season started.

He nodded to Lena, smiling, though he didn't hear what she said. He was looking in her eyes but he was trapped by questions in his mind. The guilt that clogged his throat turned his answers into awkward nods more often than he wanted it to.

* * *

Pansy's POV

* * *

A voice in the back of her mind asked her how long it had been since they'd kissed. But just that morning she had grabbed his hand and hadn't jerked away as he had the many times before. Instead, he looked at her with those deep eyes, that seemed endless with an expression she couldn't place.

She wanted him so badly. Wanted him to want her so badly. Everything she was doing for him seemed to only make things worse.

Sitting in the dormitory to wait for her friends to get back from their afternoon classes, her thoughts traveled to the memory of when Draco took her virginity. A magical afternoon she could never forget. Of course, she tried to block out the fact that it was in the boy's bathrooms on the second floor, in between lunch and her last class of the day. But, that night, he had taken her out on his broomstick and the two of them soared through the Quiddich hoops until they grew bored and they went atop one of the many high rise bleachers and watched a meteor shower until the night seeped away into a glorious sunrise.

Snapping back to reality, she felt a single tear roll down her cheek, and soon more flowed freely as she let herself cry, realizing that Draco didn't want her. Sifting through the many memories of his blank eyes, or eyes filled with thought. But he was never really looking at her. He would never look at her the way he looked at Lena.

 _At least there's another guy around to satisfy me._

Daphne entered the dormitory, and Pansy quickly turned her back to her as she wiped the tears away.


	25. Chapter 25

Twenty-Five

* * *

Lena's POV

* * *

Friday, December 16th, Christmas Break

* * *

 _She walked down the corridor slowly. She made the right. The same right she had made a hundred times. She stood in front of the wood door. "Matolus," she breathed._

 _Click._

 _It was unlocked. She entered. She felt her heart pumping as she turned to the dark green and silver hall. She passed six doors, three on each side. And she once again stood in front of the dark wood door, with beautiful vines engraved in it that she had never noticed before. She knelt down and looked closer. Her face was only an inch away. A snake's eyes peered in hers._

 _She gasped as she saw it's entire body hidden in the delicate engravings. She looked at the door next to it. No snake. She desperately searched for another snake on all of the other doors, but found none._

 _She stood, once again, hesitating before she stood in front of the door. She wondered if she should enter, but her legs had turned to jello, and without even consciously doing it, her hand was on the knob. The door opened silently. It moved by itself to the wall. She walked forward and it slammed closed behind her._

 _Lena jumped. She went to look at the portrait once again. She stood three feet away and it began to leak._

 _Lena rubbed her eyes, to see if it was real._

 _The snake was slithering down out of the painting, over the towels, leaving his paint trail behind him. He wrapped himself around her arm and up her shoulders. She wanted to rip the snake off as it moved for her neck. Her breathing quickened as it coiled and coiled, threatening to strangle her._

 _She tried to move her arms, but she was so frightened that she could not move them._

 _The snake's tail rested on her shoulder. She felt him adjusting, tightening. She feared the worse._

 _This snake is going to kill me. I'm going to die._

 _Lena tried to scream. No sound came from her mouth._

 _"Shhhhh," She heard him say. He was suffocating her. She couldn't breathe. His head moved for her ear. He hissed, "You're mine, Lena Yavari."_

Lena awoke suddenly in the night in a cold sweat, gasping for breath. Every time she slept, she dreamed the same nightmare, each time growing in detail. This was the farthest she'd ever made it in the dream. Last night, he had only suffocated her.

She could still hear the echo of his voice in her head. She tried to breathe slowly and evenly.

She checked the time.

4:19

She couldn't sleep anymore. She could not resist the urge to fulfill the dream, and stop the endless nightmares.

 _I doubt it's even going to happen. I was just dreaming in the tub the last time it happened,_ she denied.

However, Lena got out of bed and pulled a cloak around her short, green nightgown, which only went a few inches below her waist. She snatched her wand from beneath her pillow.

She slipped on her fluffy green ballet slippers and headed for the stairs.

Lena couldn't believe she was going to act on it. The same dream haunted her night after night, and now she was finally going to do something about it. She stopped at the mirror by the exiting door and put contacts in her eyes.

With her eyes open, they had no effect. However, when she closed her eyes, her vision had the ability to see through the thick walls.

The girl walked quietly down the halls. She placed her finger on her shoulder and waited.

It was almost a minute before the bug came out of it's hiding place and crawled his place in her ear.

She immediately felt her hearing magnify. She could hear a mouse nearby, scurrying; and a pair of late night lovers snogging. She closed her eyes and looked around her. She spotted them.

They where more than fifty feet away, through several walls in an abandoned dungeon classroom, sucking each others faces desperately.

She began to climb the stairs.

She felt the eerie _déjà vu_ seeping through her bones and she repeated the dream exactly.

Remaining out of sight and keeping a careful eye out for the teachers crawling the halls was the only difference from the dream. In the dream there was nobody but her.

Lena pinched herself as she took the same right turn as always. Nothing, she did not awake. But she never awoke when she pinched herself in the dream. She wondered if she should try a more effective method, but her curiosity got the best of her as she began to run silently to the seven-year bathroom door. "Matolus," she whispered. She heard the echo and each distinct crackle in her voice.

As it unlocked, she entered and went straight for the last door. She knelt down and closed her eyes.

 _If there is no snake, I will not open this door._

Before she could open her eyes, she detected a man walking down the corridor. She prayed that he would pass the bathrooms by; however, he stopped just as he reached the door. "Shit!" Lena whispered. She heard the door click. She was trapped. She was in the middle of the Slytherin corridor. She quickly opened the door next to the door with the snake engraving. Inside, she found exactly the same color scheme as always, green, silver, black, and white.

She watched carefully as the boy stopped and admired the beautiful fountain. She could not tell who it was. "Where did she go?" she heard him whisper under his breath. She heard doors opening and closing down her hall. She watched as he did the other side first. She ran to the thick curtain, tripping over the rug, and hid behind it, diligently, after recovering from her trip.

She felt her heart pumping more and more quickly as he opened the door next to hers. She held her breath and closed her eyes as he opened the door to the bathroom she was standing in. He stood there for a few seconds longer than the other doors. He gazed at the distorted rug that was in front of the bath. He entered and gazed around.

Lena couldn't hold her breath any longer, and at this point, one gasp for breath could be the end of hiding. Desperately, she commanded her breath not to exhale or inhale. He inspected for what seemed like several more minutes. Each second was a painful reminder in Lena's lungs.

He left without a word, leaving the bathrooms entirely without searching the rest of the halls.

The girl ran to the bathroom next door, kneeling down, she remade her promise- if there was a snake, she would enter; if there wasn't, she would stop wasting her time pursuing this dream.

Opening her eyes, she stared directly at the snake. It was exactly as in her dream.

She scurried to the other doors, and found no more snakes in the room.

 _Well, I promised myself..._ Lena chirped happily.

She opened the door without any hesitation, closing and locking it behind her.

Once again, she found herself in front of that snake, hanging on its high jungle tree, looking over at the vast meadow oasis.

It did not move until she began to strip her clothing; she began with her slippers. She turned her back on it this time, but she heard the drops of paint leaking onto the floor, the sound of the snake slithering over dry towels.

Gasping, she realized that the snake was already out of his portrait; she felt him crawling up her leg. She slowly turned her head to see the wall that the painting was hung on was now a jungle. It was so real it looked like she could step over the ledge and enter a different continent, a thousand miles way.

She gasped again.

He slithered over her nightgown and up to her shoulder. He wrapped around her neck, but did not tighten his grip anymore than he had around her leg.

"Lena Yavari..." He whispered.

Lena jumped back three feet as he unwound himself off of her and onto the floor in front of her.

Tom Marvolo Riddle in full clothing stood in front of her.

Lena struggled to deal with the reality of it all. She stepped back as he moved to touch her. She was against the wall several seconds later.

He smirked. The evil smirk he carried today, but without the slit red eyes, and the flattened nose. Tom was so handsome when he was younger. His starry blue eyes, and his perfectly placed brown hair. He moved his arms from behind his back and put his hands on Lena's shoulders.

He flicked one of the shoulder straps, and then pulled the other one off. The green nightgown dropped to the floor in a flutter of silken fabric. He smirked wider as he moved his hands to her boobs. Lena moved her hands to his shirt, almost unconsciously. She unbuttoned it quickly; Tom was moving his hands lower, around her back and then down her side. He moved his fingers lightly over her thighs and between her legs.

She couldn't stop her heart from beating so fast. She gasped as he rubbed on her, she felt herself getting wet. She put her arms around him and pulled him closer. Her arms slowly began to retract as his finger circled and began to tease her, not going in far enough to satisfy anything.

She felt him get hard against her leg. He let it sit between her legs as he stopped pleasuring her.

She felt it pulsing there. She moved her hips back and forth, trying to force him to get closer.

He smirked as she tried, and slammed it into her. She moaned as he took her virginity from her. Putting his hands around her butt, he lifted her up and began to move her up and down on him, going in deeper and harder each time.

Lena couldn't breathe. She wanted to collapse. Pulling out, he turned her around and pushed her against the back of a couch. He pushed into her again from behind. She was bent forward over the couch, moaning and shrieking, loving the moans of pleasure he made as he fucked her.

She collapsed forward onto the couch in crippling pain from the man's force, but Tom continued until she felt his cum spilling into her.

He pulled out of her and forced her to turn around. He kissed her slowly and passionately, his kisses trailed to her neck, leaving a cold and empty feeling.

"I'm yours now, Lena Yavari."

He was wrapping his arms around her in a hug as he began to turn into a snake, which rose to her shoulders and draped like a fashionable necklace from the 1600's.

Lena sat in the tub as it filled quickly, rainbows of fragrances arose from the water as she cleaned herself off. Spending an eternity there, pondering and enjoying the rising scents of jasmine and tropical fruits. But she couldn't warm her body fully in the searing hot water. The daunting and chilling cold swept over her repeatedly, everywhere he had touched her, she realized. She felt Tom's gaze on her as he coiled on a towel.


	26. Chapter 26

Twenty-Six

"See ya after the 'olidays, kids." The half-blood giant Hagrid was hugging Granger, Potter and Weasley. She sneered weakly, jumping onto the Hogwarts Express. She found the carriage with her fellow Slytherins and entered. Her new pet that refused to leave her company hung around her shoulders.

She stroked Tom's head and he closed his eyes in pleasure. He lazily hid his face from the light behind Lena's hair and drifted off into a sleep.

 _Déjà vu_ hit the girl once more. She took the window seat across from Draco. Crabbe and Goyle, Pansy, and, of course, Blaise were in the seats next to hers. She knew that Pansy would soon run from the awkwardness to find a less full compartment with Daphne Greengrass in it.

The majority of the train ride, Lena spent reminiscing about what had happened in the Head Student's bathroom a few days before. The constant chill had turned almost painful, and had spread to the pit of her stomach, as well as every other inch of her skin's surface. It radiated randomly every few minutes, causing her to either dry heave, or shiver uncontrollably. Blaise's hand spread warmth throughout her entire arm. Regretfully, she pulled her fingers out of his grip slowly and she moved a stray hair out of her face as he looked up at her.

"So you're going to just spend the Holidays at home?" Lena asked.

"Unfortunately," Blaise replied blandly.

"Yes, how unfortunate," Draco mocked. "Too bad me and Lena will be in Berlin together, eh?"

Lena shot him a glare. She had failed to mention this particular fact to Blaise. Searching Lena's eyes for the truth, he found it and looked down at his Quidditch Magazine. Lena slid her hand beneath his again and he clutched it tightly. She watched as the snowy hillside passed by slowly through the window.

Draco's expression told Lena he was lost in thought after a few hours into the train ride.

Crabbe and Goyle had spent several galleons on food from the cart. Lena had selected a mixture of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Jelly Beans and a grab bag of interesting treats for a few sickles, which she gladly shared with Blaise as he got what appeared to be a "Boggy" flavored jelly bean. He spat it into the bin by the sliding door. Draco didn't try to hide his desirous rage.

Lena took one from the grab bag and found her face turning pale blue, periwinkle, purple, pink, red, orange, yellow, green, and teal for the next half an hour, which Pansy could not laugh enough about until Draco spoke on the matter.

"You're the most beautiful Aurora Bora Alis I've ever seen, Lena."

"Shove off my girlfriend, Malfoy," Blaise snapped.

"Whatever, Tiny," he retorted quickly, and left to go settle a scramble between two third years outside of their compartment, Pansy, like a faithful servant, jogged after her Slytherin Prince. Lena didn't ask Blaise about the nickname. They were suddenly alone.

"Lena, I've wanted to tell you for months, but I thought I'd scare you off if I said it too soon."

Lena did not speak and waited for what he had to say.

"I love you, Lena Yavari."

"I love you too, Blaise," she replied thoughtlessly. She wasn't sure if she loved him or not.

He wrapped his strong arms around her and kissed her passionately up the neck until his lips reached her mouth. His tongue slipped inside slowly, and Lena played back fiercely.

* * *

"Let's go, Lena!" Draco was bellowing from the emerald SUV that would be driving them to the airport.

He's already pissed off, she noticed.

She gave Blaise one last farewell kiss and ran to the car, her trunk hovering behind her- however, she had charmed it so it looked like she was carrying it, so no muggles would be suspicious. Not that they ever noticed _anything_ out of the ordinary.

Lena got into the door that Draco was holding open for her. He closed it. The driver put her trunk in the back with Draco's and Draco got into the other side.

The SUV immediately began to move.

Lena was pinned between an awkward silence, and Draco still seemed so deep in thought it was as if he was not there at all.

"I wish you'd keep those sucking face sessions private," he spat. Lena glanced at him, and back to the green English country-side that raced by.

"At least I didn't fuck someone on the couch in the common room." Lena imitated dry-heaving by indicating a finger down her throat, shooting a glare his way.

A pang of guilt stung through her as she relived this morning's experience with Tom. Who had yet to turn back into an actual human being. She wondered if he ever would.

Her chest was slowly escaping from the small muggle tank top she had bought over the summer.

Draco was drooling.

"Want a picture?"

He shifted uncomfortably and looked at her chest again before moving his eyes to hers.

"No, I want the real thing," he mumbled.

"What?" Lena asked, not sure what she had heard.

"Nothing," he repeated quickly and looked back out the window. "Thank you for spending the time to train me Lena. But I still haven't gotten to practice on a human yet."

"Neither have I, Draco," she reminded him.

"And that doesn't concern you in the least?"

Lena lied and shook her head.

* * *

Draco's POV

* * *

 _I'll just practice on Blaise,_ he thought wickedly.

"You have a long time before you will be initiated, Draco, there's no need for you to worry. Practice comes with the job," Lena said in her soft whisper of a voice; it was butter melting on toast, silk flowing effortlessly.

Draco felt himself inching closing to her as she began to speak again, beginning to look upset.

"It's just...I know I'm going to have to kill a muggle or something to get in, but I keep dreading the worst."

"The worst?"

"If it's not an easy task."

"Ah..." Draco didn't answer, just let his response reminisce in the air surrounding them. The SUV stopped and the driver ran around the car to open Lena's door. The movement hid Draco's expression from Lena.

Draco got out of the car and withdrew is trunk from the back. He set Lena's next to his and slammed the hatch shut.

He rolled Lena's to her, where she stood waiting for him on the curb, as she tossed a galleon at the driver, who looked at it gleefully and returned to the car.

"Looks like the most money he's ever seen in his life," Draco sneered.

* * *

Lena's POV

* * *

"That's for sure," Lena laughed as she pulled her trunk into the airport. There was over three hundred muggles in the line she needed to be at the front of. She began to grow impatient with the half-witted, talentless filth.

"Ugh, I wish these muggles would cut out the breeding," she hissed at Draco.

 _"I can help with that,"_ Tom whispered in her ear, she had barely felt him rise to her shoulders.

Lena smirked as her and Draco stepped forward in line. It was nearly half an hour before she was asked for her international papers, while Tom disappeared. She still felt his leathery snakeskin pressing in her neck, shrouded by an invisibility spell.

She withdrew her Duel Citizenship papers and her German passport, placing it on the counter. Draco leaned casually against the counter next to hers, a flirty muggle hitting on him. Lena scowled, feeling her blood boil and her resentment surround her. She reminded herself of Blaise, and forgot the girl. Draco wouldn't be interested in her anyway. He doesn't look at anything but pureblood.

The security gave her the clear as she put her trunk through the scanner and walked through the metal detector, and waited for Draco to come out on the other side. Suddenly-

"HE'S GOT A GUN, DOWN DOWN DOWN!"


	27. Chapter 27

Twenty-Seven

The airport erupted in screams.

Lena, disregarding the sudden terror of the by-standers, screaming, and running around flailing their arms superfluously, swayed the top half of her body to peak back through the glass security doors.

Two men in black, with guns strapped to their hips pinned Draco against a wall.

He was not smirking.

He was not sneering.

He was nothing less than the most pissed off Lena had ever seen him, though he did eventually stop struggling after several seconds, surrendering, and ceasing to tug his hands out of the metal devices to hold his hands together. These muggles were lucky he didn't want to make a scene, or they'd all be dead.

As soon as he stopped struggling, they hit him with some sort of electromagnetic pulsed surge, some muggle technology whatchamacallit, which caused Draco to shriek in shock, leaving his body jittering with the electricity and on the marble floor.

 _The nerve of these Muggles..._

Balling up her fists in pure petulance, Lena slipped her fingers toward her wand. However realized that that was exactly the thing Draco had done in the first place to get him in trouble; that and likely threw some rather lousy words at the man searching him.

These muggle airports were under high surveillance and maximum security. Of course a suspicious looking man who didn't look like he belonged would be snatched up.

They stood Draco up, and now a ridiculous amount of people were hovering in to watch, instead of getting the security clearance line moving again.

Dragging the blonde haired boy to a private room, Lena decided that this was going to take longer than expected. She checked the time and was glad that they had arrived a couple hours early so that they would not miss their flight.

This was Lena's first plane ride. She had taken boats, trains, buses, and cars across boarders in the muggle world. But this was the first time she would be flown to Germany in such a short amount of time. _The ideas these muggles came up with to get themselves places, when I can just disappear, and reappear where I want to be._

Lena laughed aloud, and a couple nudging their way through the security looked at her gawkily. She realized her laugh might had sounded a tad bit evil... She grasped her trunk once more and shifted her direction instantly to the woman's washroom.

There were twenty or so sinks, with mirrors bordered with a fine mosaic of colored glass: all different shades of purple and tan, couches and lounge chairs of the same colors were against the wall opposite the mirrors. Doing a few discreet charms to make her hair form a soft curl and make her bangs sweep across her face until she was pleased with the results, she dragged the heavy trunk into the last stall of the elegant bathroom.

The door had a picture of a stick-man in a chair with wheels, but was the only stall big enough to fit her trunk.

Digging through it, she withdrew her muggle clothing that she had gotten from some of the fabulous runway shows in Paris the year before. Her parents had barely allowed it, but she had easily convinced her mother when she showed her several of the magnificent ball gowns.

Stripping all of her clothes back into the trunk, she slipped into black stockings that rose high up on her thighs, with tiny designs of flowers cut into the leggings. A short, high-waisted, tan, button-up dress was pulled over her head and she stepped into some black suede high heels, and next put her black pea-coat over.

She knew she looked gorgeous, her lioness mane of hair looked like she'd just been laid. Lena didn't bother to magically straighten it as she normally did. Today, she was feeling... _wild._ She made sure that her trunk was locked as she exited the stall, quickly stopping to wash her hands; and then left the bathroom, looking for a place to get some butterbeer or coffee, if she had to settle.

A green circular Starbuck's symbol lit up the corner and she immediately changed course for it.

She ordered a Vanilla Latte, and a Chocolate Mocha Fra... _whatchamugglescallit_... For Draco.

Wondering how long it had been, she headed back to the security room. She knocked on the one Draco had gone into. A puffy faced security guard looked relieved until he saw who it was. He stepped out of the room. "May I help you," he asked, staring at her boobs.

She wished that the glass on the door wasn't clouded so that Draco could see what this muggle was doing. Annoyed, she demanded, "The man in there, blonde haired guy?"

The guy nodded.

"What exactly are the charges you're holding him against?"

"International Security, we cannot allow a terrorist suspect through those plane doors.

Lena raised her eyebrows, taking a sip of her drink.

* * *

Draco's POV

* * *

"Please remain seated until the pilot has turned off the seat-belt light above your heads. We will be providing on-board entertainment this afternoon..."

Draco ignored what the stewardess was saying and turned to Lena, hoping that she would finally answer his questions instead of shushing him. He took a sip of his drink, "This is all right for muggles, by the way."

He tried to look in her eyes. He really did. But why did she have to look so hot?

"Stop staring at my chest, Draco," she moaned. Or did he imagine her moaning?

His eyes reluctantly rose to hers, where her hair looked like she had just rolled out of bed-

"Did you sleep with them to get me out of there Lena?" he demanded suddenly, too obnoxiously. "I swear to God if another man has touched you-"

"Yes. I fucked him, Draco."

His eyes widened. She withdrew the joke as his face began to turn red and pissed off.

"Well, what did you do then?"

" _Imperio."_ She answered, and Draco was completely under her control, his eyes in shock, the only thing he still had control of. "Though, it's easy to do when people are distracted by, say, my boobs. So I can't take all the credit."

She forced him to pour her a drink and place it in front of her from a mini alcohol bottle. Of course, since they had to get fake IDs in the first place, Draco asked to be old enough to drink. They had gotten very angry ten minutes before with the stewardess, who did not believe that they were old enough, demanding to see their passports, which showed their actual age. Lena had blown up, and only had to mention once the money she spends on this airline to get first-class seating. She didn't even get started on her amazing attorney, and instead got four free mini bottles, courtesy of the company.

She took a sip of the rum and it burned down her throat, leaving a mixture of vanilla and alcohol in her breath. "Ah, thank you, Draco. That was rather good." She smacked her lips. Draco had the most pleading look in his eyes. _Let me go..._

"Ah, sure." She released the spell.

"Aren't you worried you'll get expelled for using magic outside of school?"

Lena laughed aloud at Draco's question. She withdrew her wand. "This is my wand," She withdrew a second wand. "This is my registered wand. See, as long as I keep this one unregistered, they think I'm just some house elf or traveler wizard from another country. Isn't it great?" She paused. "Oh, and not to mention that we are flying at 45,000 feet, and about five-hundred miles an hour through the air, do you really think they can pinpoint that? How many wizards use planes?"

"Is it safe to be using magic at 45,000 feet, while flying at 500 miles per hour through the air?" Draco said back smartly.

Lena frowned and withdrew her smirk quickly and shoved her wand back into her purse. He looked around at the empty first class compartment while she did this. Only a business man near the front, occupied by something on his lap.

Lena turned her attention back to Draco.

Draco nodded with a victorious smirk. He had the sudden desire to kiss Lena. She looked so outrageously gorgeous and he wanted to take her to the small bathroom so they could join the mile-high club. _Fuck, I wish I wasn't so horny._

"Draco?" she asked in her soft whisper.

 _Jesus, woman, stop provoking me._ "Nothing," he replied too quickly. He knew she would have asked it if he had stayed silent longer.

"What?"

"I'm sorry, what's up?" he muttered, his thoughts still at the front of his mind.

"Nothing."

* * *

Lena's POV

* * *

The plane landed and Lena rushed out of first class so that she and Draco were the first ones off. _I rather hate flying,_ she wanted to say to Draco, but the intercom was too loud and the many chatty people in "economy" seating. Muggles and their pleasantries...

They went immediately to the front of what would be a large line of people heading into Germany from out of the country. She handed the man her passport. He asked her in German if she had her exchange papers.

"Ja," she replied, digging into her bag for them. She'd filled them out on the plane. Draco was hurriedly filling his out on the counter next to her, the woman he was speaking with was rather annoyed. However, Draco threw on a mature charm, and the woman laughed in ease at his mellow German.

Draco and Lena left the airport, she reached into her bag and withdrew a cigarette and a lighter as they headed along the sidewalk of the parking lot.

After lighting it, Draco spoke. "That's a filthy muggle habit," he said snidely.

"You're right." She wanted to tell him she was only using it to calm her stomach from the plane, but she passed on the opportunity as she was now gazing upon her favorite place in the world. The place where she had grown up in, the place that had perpetual enterprises and halcyon surprises.

 _Berlin._

Draco was looking around awkwardly. He had never been to Berlin before, except for when he had appearated to a Death Eater meeting, but never to the metropolis itself, at least.

He was reaching for his muggle cell-phone, which he began to try and figure out how it worked when Lena grabbed his hand and dragged him down the street a ways, until she saw a parked taxi van. She hopped in and told the driver the address of the manor.

It was well outside the city, and the man gratefully accepted the money and the large tip for having to go so far. Lena never cared about muggle money, she could transfigure a piece of paper into muggle money. She just threw a few large bills at the guy, making herself look like an egotistical prick most of the time to muggles.

However, at least she wasn't in France, where you just look like a bloody rich tourist paying extra tips, the waiters took it badly. But hey, maybe just because her French wasn't up to par and she called his mother something terrible, instead of getting the soup she wanted.

Lena walked to the gates and they swung open at her presence. Draco followed more confidently now, smirking.

Entering the manor, a house elf in very nice and clean looking clothing greeted her. It was crafted out of pillowcases most delicately, so that from far away it looked nice. However, at closer glance, any fool could see that this house elf did not work willingly.

"Mistress Lena, Master Malfoy, please, please, lemme take your bags," she said in a rush.

"Get to it then, Wynnie," Lena spat coldly to the elf. It squeaked in fear and disappeared with the bags. A loud _CRACK_ echoed against the walls decorated with tapestries.

Draco was ginning uncontrollably. Lena wondered why, but knew better than to ask him. Assuming that it was what she had said to Wynnie, she smirked back fearlessly. She breathed in the familiar air and began to stroll up to her bedroom. Draco followed.

"So, do you know what your second task is?" he asked curiously. Lena wondered if it was genuine or if he knew of the task already and sworn to secrecy. She couldn't tell from the blank state of his gray eyes.

"I have no idea. I hope it isn't something too difficult. I still feel like I haven't gone into depth into as many things as I'd like to."

Draco didn't answer, he just looked at her from across the room with what she almost categorized as pity, a look she'd never seen him make before. At least with her.

"Well, how about I show you your room," she asked, wanting to get him out of there for some reason.

He nodded steadily, following Lena out of the room across the hall and into the room he would be staying in.

His bags and trunk were already placed atop a chest at the foot of the massive King-size bed. A gentle breeze blew thin white curtains away from the balcony door, and Draco went to it, stepping outside. "Will you join me?" He asked quietly.

Lena nodded and stepped outside with him, sitting on the cushioned bench. He sat next to her.

"Why do you like him? He's a piece of shit."

 _He's talking about Blaise._

Lena narrowed her eyes. "It's none of your business who I'm with Draco, unless you wish to respect it." She stood, looking at him with the meanest look she could muster.

"You know, you look cute as hell when you're mad."

She could tell he wanted to say something else, but she wouldn't let him. He was smirking and approaching her slowly, as though she were a gazelle and he was a lion, creeping from behind a lone tree in the middle of a vast, dry wasteland.

She inhaled his familiar pheromones. She felt herself immediately drawn to just his scent alone as she closed her eyes. Drawing in the musky spice smell once more. He was mere centimeters away when she opened her eyes again. And she felt the rush of blood to her face.

Draco smirked as he saw her blushing, and didn't bother to say it aloud to embarrass her more. He turned and walked away, beginning to get ready for the meeting tonight, only managing to tease her more. He threw off his muggle t-shirt, exposing his gorgeous body. Lena began to step backwards, warning herself not to get tempted by the him.

 _Draco Malfoy._

Lena stepped off the balcony and practically sprinted of the room, feeling his piercing gaze of rejection, but he did not say a word. Entering her own once more, her new snake was in his tank on her desk, enjoying himself in the heat-lamp's light, resting his head by his water bowl. She had found that snakes tended to be rather lazy, sleepy creatures. He looked like he was sun tanning. Lena smiled. Most of the time the tank was empty.

The sun was setting soon though, and tonight was a Death Eater's favorite holiday. Lena only wished she had already been initiated to celebrate it fully. She selected her blackest cloak, and her blackest robes, from the back of her closet. She dressed quickly.

She put the cloak over her arm and exited the room. Draco held out his arm, she took it and walked with him to the main corridor, where bursts of laughter and chatter were coming from.

"Ah! Our two newest apprentices." Lena and Draco reached the bottom of the stairs, where Voldemort himself stood, handing them both drinks. It's tradition to drink, and you can't play if you don't drink. Those were the rules. "Everyone, a toast to a brilliant young witch, and a most talented young wizard, who have dedicated themselves to our cause, already, despite their age. Lena and Draco!"

"Cheers!" Every shouted, glass clinking against glass. Lena took her shot and wanted desperately for something else to drink to cover up the foul taste.

 _This is no fire whiskey._

Lena covered up her distaste quickly, before anyone saw. She felt herself getting drunker faster than she had ever before in her life.

Pulling her hood over her head, a dark shadow cast over her face, only her long blonde hair was visible, coming out and spilling over her shoulders.

She could feel her heart pumping, and she could see clearly, but she felt as though she was completely out of control of her actions, however, as she ran faster next to Draco and crowd, they suddenly stopped, now outside of the manor's magical charms, warding off trespassers. Everyone held rope that played as a port-key and they were sucked through a vortex to a small village in England, which they began to pillage and harass the village folk. She shot a curse at a man trying to run away, but he had left his wife. Lena went up to him. She felt the drunkenness fading as she sank back into reality, feeling the heat of the fire radiating off of the house next to her and it was a long minute before she noticed that it was burning.

"Please..." The man whispered, cowering at her feet.

Lena demanded, "Beg for your life, and I will kill your wife and son. To save them, you must sacrifice yourself." His family was in earshot, his child was frightened, and covered and black smudges from the fires. She heard what she said, and she admitted it was fair, though the cloud in her mind returned the more she thought. The drunkenness was now overpowering her in waves, her mind clearing and fogging every few seconds. This man would run and abandon his helpless wife and child, but he did not have the courage to stand and fight.

"You muggles are all the same. Cowards. You can't stand up to fight for what you believe in." It wasn't her saying the words...was it?

"Please don't kill me..."

"Crucio!" She shouted. The man curled into a ball on the ground, his entire body quivering in pain. "Think again before you abandon your morals in fear, weak piece of shit. A shame, really, is all you are. Never can find a challenge with muggles." She felt like her voice didn't sound like her own. She peered around for Draco, leaving the man curled in a ball on the ground near his burning house. Her lapses of cloudiness were spacing slowly. She desperately searched for Draco.

Several cracks sounded and Lena whisked herself away in a black cloud of smoke, back at her manor once more. Everyone else appeared at slower reaction times than her, but soon everyone was there. She looked for Draco, walking among the cloaked and hooded figures. He would be the only other one without a mask.

"Where's Draco?" Lena asked into the black crowd. There was no answer. But she watched as the hooded figure that must have been Lucius began to frantically look as well.

"Draco!" She screamed into the black night hopelessly.


	28. Chapter 28

Twenty-Eight

* * *

Draco's POV

* * *

His breathing was heavy as the chaos settled down. He should have appearated, however, he could not help himself, all of Harry Potter's friends would be showing up soon, from the oh so very secret _Order of the Phoenix._ Just one shot, one good practice kill shot-

A crack sounded far away from him; immediately the Aurors and Order members ran to the spot, three more cracks echoed through the night and he could not place where they were coming from.

CRACK.

He was back at Lena's Manor.

Everyone was laughing at the joy the celebrating had brought them. He heard his father discussing with Goyle something about the looks on their faces. Lena was the only one not smirking. Her glaring was surprisingly cute, he decided. The two stood away from the crowd as everyone else filed inside to the awaiting feast.

She turned briskly and tried to rush away from him. He grabbed her arm.

The evening had quieted down, now that everyone was making their way into the house.

"Let go of me, Draco," she spat.

 _Why is she so angry? What the fuck is wrong with girls?_

"No." He couldn't help but smirk. He loved to be in this position of power over her. She was so defiant, so fiery, yet so puny and weak. Her eyes flared up in anger as he refused.

She tried to get away but he was so much physically stronger than her, he barely even tried and she jerked at her arm repeatedly with all of her strength before giving up. He grabbed the other one and locked them against the side of her house.

"Don't make me say it again, Draco," she whispered threateningly.

Bringing his lips to her ears, he said in the softest, most threatening whisper, "I can't wait until you're all mine." He kissed her neck softly.

"Ugh!" Lena shouted with disgust and he released her. She left him outside alone. He looked up at the starry sky in thought.

 _Why doesn't she want me as badly as I want her?_

* * *

Lena looked stunning and Draco did his best to keep his eyes off of her as she gracefully glided down the stairs like some kind of Princess. She wore an elegant white and gold ball gown, and she was surely the star of the gala, the rest of the party guests looked at her in awe, the women with jealously at her youth and beauty. Her light blonde hair was curled and toppled into a bun at the back of her head, and her green eyes were smoldering under the bright crystal chandelier.

Parkinson neared him, he felt her moving through the crowd to get to him. He had been ignoring her, but she couldn't take the hint. Seconds later, she was next to him.

Lena reached the bottom of the stairs with one more step and turned her direction away from Draco as she saw Pansy. She instead went to a family he had never met before, with some prat from Durmstrung eyeballing Lena next to his parents.

Draco clenched his fists in fury, but Pansy touched his shoulder. He shrugged away from her hand and turned to bite her out.

"Would you like to dance?"

 _She looks pathetic,_ he had to admit. She was wearing a boring green dress which clung tightly to her imperfect body. He smirked at the thought and gave the girl a pity dance as he took her outstretched hand.

He turned to Lena's direction to make sure she hadn't seen him. She was talking to the boy from Durmstrang alone now. Draco was smarter than to think it was just friendly conversation. He turned back to Pansy, whose eyes were gleaming with pure joy as she looked at him.

She brought a hand to him face and pushed the blonde strands out of his eyes. He flinched at her gentle touch. "Pansy, I -"

"I love you too!" she shouted too loudly, having the nerve to try and kiss him passionately in front of all those people. He couldn't help but notice her quick glance behind him as he tore away from Pansy.

 _Lena._ He knew without looking.

He stood in shock, trying to pull Pansy's prying grip off of him, but he felt so weak and defeated as he turned and saw Lena's jealous rage fuming from her eyes as she stood calmly and dangerously still, her arms crossing each other and entwining below her breasts.

Pansy still held his hand from the dance, and he tried to pull away.

"Budge off, Pansy," he muttered at her. She didn't let him go.

"Draco, _please..._ " she said back in her snide voice. It was hideously deep.

"Don't you get it, Pansy? I don't want this between us. Ever."

He wished he had said it louder, but it wouldn't have mattered, because Lena and Durmstrang boy had disappeared. Draco ripped his arm from Pansy, who was trying to comfort him in his rage. She backed off in fear as he glared at her.

He wished that he could hit her for what she was doing to his life. Sure, they had snogged, and had sex, but it was just sex. Lena would _make love_ to him.

He hurried off to find Lena, leaving Pansy still and abandoned in the middle of the ballroom. He was sure some kind boy would ask her to dance though, she wasn't bad-looking. He would stand her pity for the night, not Draco. There were probably a hundred people here tonight.

He immediately went through the dining area and out the back door, seeing the gigantic span of lakeside and a white gazebo towards the water. Two shadowy figures giggled and laughed, echoing off the trees and sounding through the night. He began to storm towards them, getting closer and closer, seeing the clothes flying off of their bodies as he laid her down on the bench and began to take her.

Draco wanted to scream with rage, he ran faster towards them, more pissed off than he had ever been in his life.

"Get the hell off of her, you filth!" He shouted as he neared, and the two figures scrambled for their clothes breathlessly. As he approached, he stopped still.

"What the 'ell is your problem, mate?" Some guy yelled. He looked immediately to the woman.

Who had brown hair.

He stopped dead still and made a quick U-turn heading quickly back to the manor, without looking back to the shocked faces, praying with all his might that he was masked by the silhouette of the lights streaming down from the house; Draco quickly drew his hood over his head. He entered and continued to look for Lena. He knew that she would not dare take the boy to her room _. But where would they go?_

His cheeks still burned red from embarrassment, hoping that the two from outside hadn't recognized him.

Draco had searched the merely half of the first floor before giving up. The manor was far too big to be completely searched. It had four stories.

"Ahhh!" Draco exclaimed to himself in frustration as he looked into another empty closet staring back at him. He slammed the door shut.

"Draco, baby, what's wrong?"

He knew it was Pansy before he spun around to look her in the face.

"Don't call me that. I'm not your baby. You're ugly, Pansy, inside and out. Not only will I never want to be with you in a relationship, any chance of friendship that we could have had, you just made disappear. Maybe at the beginning of it all, I might of liked you, but the truth now is that I was using you, and you're old news." His voice was stone cold.

He didn't expect for her to slap his across the face.

Hard.

Draco moved his hand up to his cheek in shock.

 _What the fuck is wrong with GIRLS?_

She didn't begin to bawl until she turned around and ran out of the room.

Shrugging, Draco immediately congratulated himself on the success with such little consequence, and went the dining room, where everyone was sitting around the table except for a few slackers like himself. Pansy's seat was empty.

 _Thank God it's assigned seating,_ he told himself, relieved.

Lena was in the seat on his right, and his father in the seat on his left. He casually slid into his chair.

The Dark Lord stood and raised his glass. Silence erupted among the chaos.

"Certainly, a celebration to be remembered."

Everyone drank, and the feast appeared in front of them.

Draco watched as Lena grabbed an unhealthy amount of food for her skinny frame. He'd have to teach her to be more polite about it later.

"I'm glad it's the holidays," he said simply to her, trying to make conversation.

She didn't answer; she didn't even turn her head in recognition.

"Don't piss me off, Lena," he whispered at her, so that nobody could hear above the chatter.

"Draco, stop. Please? I'm glad it's the holidays too."

"Well, why are you mad at me?"

"I'm not mad at you, Draco, stop treating me like I'm your girlfriend. I'm not!" She said that too loudly with the quiet dinner conversations occuring. The entire section of the table quieted to look at a frustrated Lena. Draco felt her embarrassment, wishing that he could take it for her, but he couldn't think of any way that would be possible.

Lena fidgeted with her ear for a second, clearly extremely angry with herself.

Lena excused herself before dessert, musing that she felt dreadfully sick.

"Do you think it was the food? I swear if those house elves-" Her mother began saying as Lena interrupted.

"No. Absolutely not."

Lena rushed out of the room before another word could be spoken on the matter.

* * *

Lena's POV

* * *

Days were flying by. She had gone shopping with a few people and Draco in Berlin, showing them around her home city.

However, before she knew it, she was awaking with a horrible hangover on the thirty-first of December. Lena's back went rigid in her bed as she realized this, before she had even opened her eyes.

She drank an entire glass of water and took several potions to help her hangover. She heard Draco exiting his room through the walls.

She glanced at her watch.

2:08

 _Holy shit, I slept in!_

Lena jumped out of bed, assuming that Draco had done the same thing, and threw her robes. She whisked her cloak around her and fastened the gold "Y" at her neck. She heard a knock at her door. She cooed the person in.

"Rosalena?" her mother whispered, figuring that the girl would still be sleeping.

"Lena." She corrected. It had been so long since someone had said her first name. Her mother and father even rarely used it. She doubted that many people even knew her real name, except for maybe Draco, who had been hexed the several times he had tried to tease her with it in the past.

"Lena," her mother agreed and continued, "Your second task is tonight. I cannot stress the importance that you don't lose your head."

 _Lose my head?_ "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Visual impressions are often misinterpreted." Her mother was intensely serious.

Lena nodded in understanding and her mother looked as though an anvil had been lifted from her shoulders. She leaned forward and kissed Lena on the forehead. "I know you will make the right decision. I love you."

"Love you too," Lena replied gracelessly back. Her mother and father rarely had expressed their love throughout her childhood. She could probably count the times that they'd said I love you on her fingers and toes.

Her mother left the room, leaving Lena once again in the dawning silence. Lena realized that her mother and father already knew what her task was. Some kids might think less of their parents for it, if they were to hide something that could help you, in order for you to succeed on your own. Lena was used to it. She had been looking out for herself for a long time. A voice in her head told her that if she did fail, her parents wouldn't cry at her funeral when the Dark Lord killed her. They would know that she deserved it, and that she had failed at what she had to do. And they would be so disappointed that their image would be ruined at having such a failure for a daughter. All of it felt so true, it pained her heart.

Lena pushed all of the terrible thoughts from her head.

She glanced in the mirror and magically did her makeup and hair, looking absolutely perfect before she exited the room, heading straight to the kitchen for some bread to settle her stomach.

"Mistress Lena, somethings to eats?"

It was that dreaded little thing, Wynnie.

"Bread," she snapped. It appeared two seconds later. Lena wanted to joke with it about how long it had taken, however, changed her mind immediately when she knew the elf would take her the wrong way, the frightened way.

 _As it should._

Taking small bites, Lena went to find where all the social interaction was going on. She wanted to talk to the Durmstrang boy again.

She found him in a side hall, with the rest of the people staying at her house.

"Lena, you're awake," Draco sneered, but Lena pushed past him with a smirk, heading to the other boy, with dark hair. Nikolai, he had told her through his thick accent the night before. He smiled widely as she approached. She caught Draco's envy from the corner of her eye, and for some reason felt pleased with herself. Ridiculously happy.

"Lena," he greeted her, nodding and kissing her hand.

"Nikolai," she smiled warmly, "did you sleep well?"

"Not as well as you," he joked.

Lena laughed, but felt herself blushing.

"It's cute," he paused, "when you do that, I mean."

Lena's blush only deepened a few shades.

She felt a familiar hand at the small of her back. "How rude of you, Lena, you must introduce me to your new friend here."

"Draco," she hissed through clenched teeth. She regained her normal, soft voice. "This is Nikolai. Nikolai, this is Draco, you know, the one that caused that obnoxious scene last night in the ballroom."

They shook hands and she could tell that Draco was squishing the boy's hand, and both of their hands began to turn dark pink and white from the pressure of the fight over who was stronger.

She couldn't tell who won, but they released the grip. Draco held a menacing glare in his eyes, not taking his eyes from the boy.

The awkwardness disappeared as they took their assigned seating at the table, where dinner was being served. She knew that it was being served late because of her. Normally it was served at two o'clock sharp.

The group at the table was slightly smaller than last night, and a middle piece of the table had been removed and hidden, so that there were no empty seats.

* * *

Lena tried to enjoy the day, but her mind was stressed and completely occupied with preparing herself for the task that night, that she found herself lying in her room on her bed, staring at the ceiling. She tossed a small super ball up and down, trying to get as close to the ceiling as she could without actually hitting it.

 _"Visual impressions are often misinterpreted."_ Her mother's voice rang clearly through her head. She knew that she could not solve the riddle of her task with that mere clue; she would have to actually see what the task was for herself. _Would that be too late?_ she wondered to herself.

Nobody disturbed her, she watched the sunset through her open window, and as the night fell to the darkness, she finally moved from her indent on the bed.

She exited the room and went to the front door. Nobody was waiting for her, and the house was completely silent. Everyone had already gone.

Lena exhaled deeply, walking outside of the hexes, charms and wards that guarded her house. Drawing her hood up over her head, she appearated into a forest in a rural part of Germany. Nobody lived around for at least fifty miles in every direction, which was why the Dark Lord had proclaimed that this was the best spot, so well hidden.

She looked past the fire that was in the middle of the cloaked Death Eaters. Two dark figures stood out of place, with black bags over their heads. She immediately assumed that her task was to kill both of them without wincing.

Easy.

She suddenly realized that this did not match up with what her mother had said. Lena headed toward the robbed figures curiously. The Dark Lord approached to his place in front of them.

Lena glanced around, and saw Nikolai smirking at her from beneath his hood.

 _Do all guys do that?_

She ignored her own question, and listened to the Dark Lord, who opened his mouth to speak.

"The choices a Death Eater must make are crucial, and must be done without a thought." Everyone in the circle was nodding and agreeing. The two figures stood still, and did not speak. "Instinct almost matters more here than intelligence. Choose."

He ripped the two bags off of the heads.

Her mind was racing, she was thinking faster than she ever had in her life, but there was no thoughts, just images, faces.

Draco...

Or Blaise.

Lena stood in dumbfounded shock for only a second after seeing them, and giving him a glance of pity-


	29. Chapter 29

Twenty-Nine

* * *

Draco's POV

* * *

Friday, December 16th, Christmas Break

* * *

He was sitting in the corner of the empty common room. He had been up the entire night in thought. He watched as Lena left the common room for her shower, and she didn't glance his way. Remaining absolutely still, he had the temptation to follow her, but he knew that something far more important than attacking Lena naked was going to happen today, and he could not let himself worry about her just yet.

Lena looked like she was in a trance as she walked out of the common room, slowly, her green ballet slippers didn't make a sound against the stone as she tip-toed around.

Draco found himself wandering the halls, and even second guessing himself. He opened a random door as he made an attempt to get lost in thought.

Two lovers smooched and Draco began to close the door quietly before they saw him.

"What the fuck is going on here?" He demanded.

The two looked at him with astonished faces. He couldn't hide the look of disgust on his face as he saw that Pansy's skirt was raised and his hips were pushed into her.

"UUGHHH," he exclaimed, and no longer being able to handle the situation, slammed the door shut angrily.

He wanted nothing more than to find Lena and tell her what he had seen. However, he knew that the girl would deny it unless she had seen it herself. Hell, even he wouldn't have believed it if someone had showed him a picture.

Still, he wondered about the circumstances. _Blaise? And Pansy? What the fuck is going on in this world these days?_

 _I give him chance after chance, since when has a Malfoy been so forgiving?_

Draco didn't know how long he had been wandering the halls, the scene of Blaise fucking Pansy streaming through his head repeatedly, each time he renewed his wrath. After a long while, he headed to a basement dungeon that was far from any sleeping students and teachers. Blaise was already waiting from him.

"What do you want, Malfoy?"

Draco didn't answer. This prick, didn't even know that Draco had seen his face in the dark room with Pansy.

"What's the purpose of this meeting, Malfoy? I only came because you said we could settle this once and for all."

"That's right, Tiny," he said, using his new nickname. "I, Draco Malfoy, have come up with the most perfect plan. You see, the Dark Lord is giving Lena her task this holiday season, a huge tradition for us Death Eaters. And, let's just say I have become aware of the details of said task."

"Go on," Blaise remarked coldly, however, Draco could see the interest spark on his face.

"The task just so happens to be for her to choose her greatest love. And the Dark Lord has requested that I snag a hair or two from you," Draco lied slyly.

The Dark Lord hadn't told him directly what the task would be, but since the Golden Trio had used the Polyjuice potion in their second year, Draco was highly aware of it.

"What exactly are you saying?"

"How about we say fuck the Polyjuice potion and we just stand ourselves, and let Lena choose who she loves more."

"Are you fucking nuts, Malfoy? You would die to find out if she loves you more?"

He could tell Blaise was confident of his destiny.

"How about it then?" Draco prompted, smirking.

* * *

Nikolai stood in front of him, chatting with his parents. The Dark Lord sat coolly in Lena's father's nicest chair with the highest back, reviewing paperwork quickly at the desk.

Lena was upstairs in her room. He was told not to disturb her, and there was guards by her hallway to keep away intruders from bothering the young girl, who would be lost in thought this close to her initiation. He wanted nothing more than to see how see was feeling about the whole thing.

Draco approached Nikolai coolly, nodding. The boy nodded back hesitantly, clearly having heard some things about him during the past week. This was the first time Draco would make his attempt to speak to the boy; Draco wondered how he would react to the secret situation.

 _It doesn't matter,_ he told himself. _He wouldn't say anything. He probably doesn't even know how to say it in English._

The sun was slowing getting closer to the billowing hills on the horizon. The Dark Lord removed two vials from his desk. He handed one to Nikolai, who quickly drank it. His body began to change form. His dark hair magically regrew in, and it was now blonde, exactly the shade of Draco's. The tied up mudblood was forced to swallow his potion, and he soon took the form of Blaise Zabini.

It was Draco's task to take the two to the highly classified location, which would not be released to anyone that the Dark Lord didn't keep tabs on.

The rest of the wizards and witches appearated and Draco was left alone with the two. He smiled at the reflection of himself, and he pulled Nikolai aside.

He gagged down the vial the Dark Lord had given to him early that day. He immediately changed into Nikolai, his skin still bubbling as he began to speak.

"You're in with me on this one, right, Nikolai?"

Draco knew that he was. The only reason Nikolai had come from Bulgaria was to impersonate Draco from this little shindig. Even the Dark Lord had confidence that Draco would win this battle. Nikolai wouldn't want any enemies, his family as new recruits, and this being one of their first tasks, to trust Voldemort with their son.

Draco watched as Nikolai's face scrunched in confusion as tried to figure out what he was speaking of. "Just act like me, all right, you prat." Draco shook his head in frustration, and watched as Nikolai imitated him. Draco restrained himself and didn't punch the guy.

Dragging the mudblood outside, through the heavy snow that than fallen during the week he finally had pulled him fall enough out of sight.

Blaise came walking up from over the hill as the other three walked away from the house. His shadowed figured was silhouetted, but Draco could tell from his tall stance that it was him.

Blaise looked first at him, and then to Nikolai as he approached, his mirror image- not at the moment of course. "All right, Malfoy," he snarled at Nikolai.

Draco knocked out the gagged prisoner and Blaise now stood in the spot next to him, thinking that he was as far away from Draco as he could be, when in fact, he was the closest.

 _Little does he know._

Draco appearated the two to the large clearing in the forest, where the all of the Dark Lord's most faithful stood in their places around the circle.

Draco backed away from Nikolai and Blaise. The Dark Lord slammed bag over Blaise's head, and gently placed the one on Nikolai, who pretended to grunt in pain just as Blaise did. Just as the Dark Lord had told him to. Draco almost laughed at the pathetic grunt, clearly steaming with how fake it had sounded.

 _This may just work out better than I thought._


	30. Chapter 30

Thirty

* * *

Lena's POV

* * *

"Instinct almost matters more here than intelligence. Choose."

He ripped the two bags off of the heads.

Her mind was racing, she was thinking faster than she ever had in her life, but there was no thoughts, just images, faces.

Draco...

Or Blaise.

Lena stood in dumbfounded shock for only a second after seeing them, and giving him a glance of pity-

-she swished her wand as she shouted, "Avada Kadavra!"

The boy dropped to the ground. Draco stood, looking at the body nonchalantly. She watched Blaise's figure on the ground and waited for it to change back into the muggle form as the Polyjuice potion lost its grip on the cells it was mutating in the body.

It had only taken Lena a second after she had seen her choices to figure out what her Mother had meant. It only made the murder easier. Her eyes were racing over the body restlessly.

Everyone in the circle watched for the body to change.

"Merciless." The Dark Lord said, approaching them, gazing down with a blank stare. Lena looked at Draco with curiosity, and sorrow, paining for his gaze, but he looked away menacingly. "Hmm." There was a long pause. "Everyone, I must ask that you take your leave. That is, except for Draco Malfoy."

CRACK.

Lena had disappeared back to outside her house before she could stop herself. Intense pain was pulsing from her heart.

"Lena, congratulations," someone called from across the lawn.

Lena nodded, but trotted away from the group before they could swarm her, hiding her manifesting pain. She found herself in a small forest clearing beside a brook and fast-flowing water. The rushing water loudly clashed with her thoughts. If maybe the Polyjuice potion was slightly abnormal and had made the changes permanently, or if it was acting out for a full hour after death because of a faulty potion maker.

She wanted nothing more than to cry. And she felt the warm salty tears run down her face and she did not wipe them away. Crying reminded Lena of her childhood, and she began to force herself to pull them back. She felt Blaise's lips on hers as he kissed her so passionately and she cried harder and endlessly into the night. Clutching her chest, her heart was shattering into a million pieces. The most intense pain she had ever experienced in her life. She heaved for breath and fell over, off of the rock. It felt like an eternity and her hot tears mixed with wet, sticky mud all over her face, and blood from biting her lip. She tossed herself around recklessly.

A searing blade cut down the center of her heart and the image burned in her mind so vividly as she watched her soul split into two.

Lena lost track of the time. When she was finally able to stand, she conjured a wet cloth and she wiped what she could off of her face before giving up and resorting to magic. She sat back on the small boulder near the stream.

Touching her lips lightly, she felt her tears come to an end, and she desired to go to her study and look through her thousands of books to find the answer. She prayed harder than she ever had in her life that Blaise was still alive, somewhere.

But in the back of her mind, the leeching thought consumed her. _You know that's impossible._

She inhaled slowly, reaching the conclusion that there was no way to get to her room without passing through the party that was being thrown in her honor at that very moment.

She lost track of time and she dried her new tears magically, collecting herself and regaining her normal stature.

As she paced slowly back to her manor, she saw his black eyes with red rims gleaming back at her, dead. It was impossible to hold back the stinging tears, but somehow Lena managed.

She entered a door on the side of her manor, and was immediately staring into the shattered varying shades of gray that made up Draco's shinning eyes, only inches away. She couldn't help herself, she dropped herself into his arms and he held her tightly. He pulled her into her father's small library attached to his study.

The two sat on the couch and Lena curled into a ball at Draco's chest. He stroked his fingers through her hair, just as he had when they were younger, when her parents had upset her. Bringing his fingers to her chin, he raised her until she was looking in his eyes. She felt so young compared to him and his composure. Draco was merely a few months older than Lena, but at times it seemed like he was thirty, and she was ten. He smirked and it cheered her up just slightly. Her vision was blurred over from the tears, and her mind felt weak and distorted.

He gently planted a kiss on her lips, pulling away reluctantly.

"How?" was all she could muster herself to say.

"I don't know, princess. I'm sorry." He pushed few strands of hair out of her face and drew them behind her ear.

It took Lena a second to process the nickname. She felt her heart fluttering, and she pushed Blaise from her mind as best as she could, replacing his image with Draco's own stunning one.

They kissed for a long time before they returned to the main dining hall. She tried to forget that she had just kissed him. She still dwelled on Blaise, and guilt choked up in her throat. She knew it would only make it harder for her to drink, and she forced herself to take her mind from what she had done, knowing that nothing could be done, whatever had happened, happened. Whether or not she wanted it to.

Everyone was already plastered off of fire-whiskey and other ales. Lena indulged herself, and poured two shots, handing one to Draco.

He took it gratefully, "Cheers," he muttered, and without a chaser, gulped it down quickly, with expertise, and Lena imitated him regretfully as it burned throughout her body. Draco smirked and took both of her hands.

"May I have a dance?"

Lena nodded, stepping onto the expensive marble floor. He pulled her close to his chest, comfortingly, attempting to whisk away her sorrows. But her heart felt heavy with guilt and she forced herself away from Draco and took another shot to numb the pain. Also to numb the sight of the swinger Death Eaters who were dancing and slobbering all over each other. Draco came to her from his spot where he was left abandoned on the dance floor. He matched her shots as she began taking them at each nightmarish thought.

 _I killed Blaise. If he had never met me, he never would have died._

 _I killed Blaise. I shot the curse that killed Blaise._

 _The first person I've ever killed was my first boyfriend._

 _How could I have done this?_

Nothing felt real.

Another shot or two and she couldn't think about it anymore. She loved the numbness of everything but her body against Draco's. Every part of her was warming up, and the last of the chilliness left from Tom's touch evaporated. Her heart hurt, but only because it was beating so quickly, not the searing pain from before. Every part of her that was touching Draco was erupting with tingling. His lips pressed into hers and she pulled him closer, forgetting all the feelings of guilt, remorse, pain, and sorrow. And only thought of Draco, and pulled him so close that she could feel every curve of his body. The shots were catching up to her.

He moved gracefully, despite how drunk she had gotten off of the same amount and she was losing her grip on reality steadily. She felt his arms wrap around her as she began to fall and he carried her up two sets of stairs to a bedroom. She hit the satin sheets, and let Draco do whatever he wanted.

* * *

Draco's POV

* * *

"Merciless," he said, looking at Draco. He looked down at his body and pushed his brown wavy hair out of his face- _ugh, Nikolai's wavy brown hair.._.

The Dark Lord moved from his side to Lena. Who was standing like a goddess with the moon high in the sky above her head, her perfect skin illuminated beneath the shadow of her hood, and a sparkle of her green eyes shot at him. She was looking at who she thought was Draco, and he was daring Nikolai to give her a response. But he looked away from her with short hollow smirk.

"Hmm." There was a long pause. "Everyone, I must ask that you take your leave. That is, except for Draco Malfoy."

CRACK.

"Not very secretive, Malfoy," he said into the now empty clearing with his back still turned to him. "I told you she would have come to you after this, with or without you killing him. Now, to cover this up..." The Dark Lord looked down at the body and for some reason, laughed into the night with a cackle. "Very noble, Malfoy, for the girl of your dreams, I hope."

"He deserved what I did to him. Believe me. I gave him his chances. He never deserved to be called Lena's greatest love, or even be up next to me."

The Dark Lord nodded with understanding, and Draco felt him raking through his mind with his continually expanding powers.

"Very well. The coming months are important for you, Malfoy. I expect that there will be no more distractions from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," he hissed.

Draco nodded and suddenly he was alone with the dark night and calm breeze.

He approached Blaise's body, which he knew the Dark Lord would return for shortly. He looked down at the body, pity filling his gigantic gray eyes.

"You deserved this, Zabini. I told you not to get involved. I warned you."

There was no answer in the silent breeze that rang through the forest. He had almost hoped for one. He knew at the back of his mind that he was only saying it to make himself feel better about what he had done, killing a pureblood wizard, no matter what he'd done.

 _CRACK._

"You're going soft, Malfoy."

It was Nikolai.

Draco wanted desperately to ignore the comment, however, replied against his own will, "Why's that, Nikolai?" he hissed.

"Vell, you have tears in your eyes and I'm just repeating what Rosalena said."

Draco's eyes narrowed at the boy, ignoring the first comment. "Why are you calling her that?"

"That's her name, moron."

"I know that's her name, you don't use that name," Draco snapped, and adding injury to insult, "Expelliamus!" Nikolai's wand was now by Draco's feet, and the boy had flown into a tree behind him. "Who do you think you are, waltzing into our lives? Just stay out of it, all right?"

"Who do you think you are, claiming her as if she is your property?" he choked.

"She is my property!" Draco shouted louder than he meant to, throwing the boy down with a swish of his wand. He glanced around and, luckily, found himself alone with Nikolai. "Just get out of here, Nikolai, your job is done."

The boys glared at each other for a long time, before Nikolai disappeared to find his parents. Draco did not see him again.

* * *

The night was growing late, and Lena couldn't stand any longer, Draco supported her for a while, as she rambled on, tears forming her in eyes. He rolled his eyes and carried her upstairs at her blatant drunkenness. Clearly, Lena wasn't a heavy drinker.

Placing her delicately on his bed, he unclasped her cloak and removed it from her, throwing it to the floor.

The room had a red glow and Draco felt himself pulling Lena's robes away from her fidgeting body as she lay restlessly, looking into his eyes from beneath him. He began to unbutton her shirt, and her breasts spilled out.

Soon, Lena was naked, Draco lifted her body and pulled the blankets over her. He stripped his own clothes much more rapidly, and crawled into bed next to Lena.

His alcohol began to catch up with him and he moved his hands over Lena's body, delightfully listening to her moans.


	31. Chapter 31

Thirty-One

* * *

Lena's POV

* * *

The sun streamed in through the open balcony and Lena curiously shifted on her satin sheets.

Suddenly, the girl froze.

 _I don't have satin sheets. Who's touching me?_

Her eyes snapped open and she realized she was in Draco's room, and Draco was slowly awakening because of her tension, his hand rested on her exposed chest and she pulled herself away quickly, pulling on one of Draco's black tee-shirts from his drawer and searching frantically for her thong and robes. She thought she was being quiet, until...

* * *

Draco's POV

* * *

"You don't have to sneak off, you know."

Lena spun around to face him. "What did you do?" She spat slowly.

"Really, you should be asking, 'What did we do?'" He stopped immediately at Lena's glare, which didn't look so cute this morning, as it had last night.

"Well?" She prompted accusingly.

"Come on, Lena, I was drunk, you were drunk. Let's just call it sex."

He felt like he was talking to Pansy. But the conversations were more fun with Lena, her reactions more fiery. She wasn't some straggling doe, she was the springing lioness.

"You're lying, we didn't have sex," she muttered slowly, looking down at her exposed self.

Honestly, she was right. He just liked imagining that he did more than not. He grinned her exposed legs.

"How would you know?" he asked, genuinely curious. He felt like shit. His head pulsed.

"I just know, okay?"

Draco rolled his eyes at Lena as she ran out of the room, covering herself with her pile of robes. He watched at her naked backside trotted from the room, smirking all the while.

* * *

Lena's POV

* * *

Lena had packed her bags already into her trunk. She was wearing a black and white floral sundress that went high above her mile long legs and blade suede heels clicked against the cobblestone inside Platform 9 and 3/4.

She had to get back on the Hogwarts Express. Back to school.

"Ugh," she sighed aloud.

* * *

The break hadn't exactly been the best. Now it would be back to studying and preparing for her final task. And this summer, she might be given her first real task as a Death Eater. Lena was surprised how quickly time was flying by, and her teenage years were diminishing slowly. She felt like it was only last week that she had been strolling into Hogwarts for her first time, naïve and eleven years old.

But in all honesty, after nine months out of the year in the same bed at a boarding school, it started to look more like home than the actual home she spent the summer and short vacations at.

 _There's no way I'm almost sixteen._

Lena found herself unpacking her things slowly back at Hogwarts. Classes would start up again the day after tomorrow, and Lena was grateful she had come back early to get herself settled in.

Her mind was clouded with the guilt of killing Blaise, and taunting his spirit by messing around with Draco when she really shouldn't have.

Since she had woken up next to him, it hadn't been the same between them. Of course it couldn't be, for the first time, Draco had seen her naked- completely exposed. _Slept_ in the same bed as her.

Lena was really beginning to hate herself, when the only person she possibly could have hated more walked into their dormitory.

"Parkinson," she greeted smoothly, her tone was low and dangerous, the negative thoughts were covered for a moment.

"Yavari." She paused for a long time, adjusting the blankets on her bed. "I heard about Blaise..." For once in her life, Pansy sounded sincere. Blaise had been a good Slytherin, a good pureblood, and a good friend. Everyone knew him almost as well as Draco.

Lena hated her for mentioning it though. She had been trying to keep her mind off of it. She doubted that anyone outside of the inner circle knew who killed Blaise. Or even how he had died.

The loss of Blaise kept the common room ten degrees chillier than normal, which left it utterly freezing. Every time she heard his name, she wanted to cry. She wanted someone to hug her, but there was no one. She wasn't sure if she could talk to Tom about this. The snake seemed to be avoiding her. Or maybe he was just preoccupied with his own things to trouble himself with hers. He was more independent than any pet she had ever expected to own.

The common room was filled with everyone wearing black in mourning, and Lena realized she felt awkward, being the only person with such a large splash of white on them. At the same time, she couldn't bring herself to get dressed again. She was too depressed for that.

She sat in the small broom closet that made her finally feel alone with her thoughts, finally comfortable. The broomstick was now transfigured into a chair with a small cushion and a desk.

She found herself reading fictional books. It was a rare thing in her life, she never had the time. However, in only two short days she would be back at work, tutoring Draco and herself on the Dark Arts. She deserved a break.

Surprisingly, as Lena left the castle and headed around the school, she found a mass of boys playing Quidditch on the field.

 _Boys and their sports..._

Every one of them began to surround her. No doubt because she was, once again, single, she thought acidly.

"Hey, Lena," Riley from Ravenclaw drawled smoothly.

She glanced around and saw that Draco was no where to be seen. She knew at the back of her mind he was the only reason she had stopped to talk to the rest of the boys. She hadn't seen him since he left the train, when he had walked in the direction of the castle without saying a word to her, nor her to him.

"Hey...dude."

He nodded and Lena turned to leave. He grabbed her shoulder uncomfortably and Lena shrugged him off of her.

"What?" She snapped, her temper rising, bubbling to the surface. Nobody had touched her since Draco had that morning when she woke up.

"Would you want to get a drink sometime?"

Lena scowled and didn't answer.

"You know, if you need to talk," he covered smoothly. "I'm around-"

Lena rolled her eyes and strolled away, ignoring the boy, and heading towards the Great Hall for dinner. She wanted desperately to be alone, however, everywhere that she went there was someone, or something, or some ghost. _Myrtle..._ She muttered silently to herself in renewed anger.

As everyone else filed into the Great Hall, Umbridge stood and the mass of students grew silent immediately. Even Draco. Lena was confused, but didn't ask the Slytherins around her where Dumbledore was.

 _Well, this is surprisingly good news. With Dumbledore gone..._

"I am at a great loss for words. Another student's life has been taken by dark creatures of the Forbidden Forest. Blaise Zabini, an honest wizard, a hilarious fellow, a friend to all of us. He dedicated much of his time to help me turn this school around."

 _Blaise was involved with Umbridge's little club?_

Lena felt her blood boil. _How well did I really know him?_

* * *

"Lena?" Her name was just an echo. "LENA!"

She startled awake. She sat in potions with Professor Snape oblivious to the person that was yelling at her.

She rose her head from the desk and looked around.

"Wake up, I can't figure out this potion with you sleeping. Most of the time I copy what you're doing," he admitted.

Draco must have sat down next to her, because she fell asleep before class started. She dropped her head again to the desk, ignoring him.

"Lena, please? I need this grade, I'm really suffering trying to balance Quidditch practice and training with you _and school._ "

"So what? Learn to grow up and deal with it," she snapped. It was only the second time she had spoken to him since she had gotten back to Hogwarts. She felt like she hadn't done anything in the last twenty-four hours. All she could think about was Blaise's shocked scowl of defeat as she shot the curse at him. His eyes pierced into her, all the time now; the image was burned into her mind's eye, permanently .

Draco didn't say a word until the end of class, and managed to get them both T's for the day.

"Merlin, Lena, why wouldn't you just help me out there? You could have finished that potion in a seco-"

Lena pushed past him, and intentionally brushed her shoulder against his, enjoying the shiver of butterflies that ran through her without showing an ounce of emotion on her face.

* * *

Draco's POV

* * *

 _Girls are so bloody emotional._

Draco turned to follow Lena, but Hermione Granger bumped into him as she dropped on of the books from her massive pile. "UGH."

" _Granger..._ " he growled at her as she bent down to pick up her books.

She jumped slightly, dropping every book from her hands and drawing her wand from her robes with lightning speed, and spun around, her eyes shot venom. "What, _Malfoy?_ "

"Don't speak to me, you filthy mudblood. If I wanted to converse with your sort-"

"You spoke first," she retorted smartly.

He scowled, narrowing his gaze threateningly. "Your blood status will keep you lower than that half-breed, Hagrid." Hermione moved her wand in an attempt to jinx him. "Watch it, Granger," he warned her. "Too bad your little boyfriends aren't here to help you this time."

* * *

 _Okay, don't worry. She definitely won't remember. She was in way too much pain to remember._

Draco blew up three of the vases within sight. He'd already destroyed the common room, now he was working on his own dormitory.

He yelled with all of his strength, throwing a fist, breaking the wooden frame holding the dark curtains of his canopy up.

Someone entered behind him. He ignored him. It was Nott. He was the only one it could be. However, Draco immediately calmed himself. He was breathing heavily in the torn up room, facing the wall closest to him. His wand was clenched in his fist and his knuckles were white.

Nott left without a word.

Draco shot three curses at the door, shattering a gigantic hole in the middle. Several curious faces peered in.

Draco shot another curse.

* * *

Lena's POV

* * *

She dodged the curse that flew down the steps from inside of the room. Many of the Slytherins scurried to do the same and the curse hit the glass case of trophies at the bottom of the steps.

Less than a minute earlier, Lena had walked in the common room, which was roaring with commotion as soon as she entered. Almost everything of value in the common room was broken or out of place somehow, likely have being thrown and blown up. She had noticed that the boy's staircase was packed full of people, all the way from first to seventh years. People could probably hear the banging and yells from outside of the basement.

Lena pushed past all of the curious people and prayed that Draco wouldn't shoot another curse. At least if he did do it, she hoped he'd be nice about it. But in a mood like this, she knew it was something bad, and it wasn't likely he'd be gentle. But she also knew that she was the only one that could deal with him in a time like this.

Finally, Lena reached the busted door.

"Scram." She snapped at everyone, and they made their way back to their dormitories. "Reparo. Silencio."

The door repaired itself and Lena locked it from the inside.

Silence erupted.

Draco was facing the wall. His dormitory looked worse than the common room. Everything had been disrupted except for the dresser that held Nott's clothing, Nott's trunk, and Nott's bed.

"Hey," she said softly.

"What?" Draco snapped angrily, not turning to face her. She heard him trying to control himself, his breathing. His fist were clenched tightly, his right had around his wand. She feared he would snap it in half with such force. She looked at his broad shoulders from behind and longed for a hug.

She walked forward slowly, placing her hand on his shoulder.

He grabbed it roughly, spinning to face her. He held her wrist and she shouted out in pain as it twisted; he didn't let go. She felt the flow of tears from her eyes in pain, and she forced herself to stay quiet.

 _So maybe this wasn't the best idea._


	32. Chapter 32

Thirty-Two

* * *

Lena's POV

* * *

"Draco, let me go," she pleaded.

He grabbed her other wrist and she began to try to squirm away from his powerful grip.

His gray eyes were surrounded with the red from the blood shooting through the tiny veins in them.

"Draco, let me go," she said again, a little more quietly, with more beseeching looks in her defeated eyes.

 _What could he have possibly done to piss himself off this much?_

Draco smirked, but she could tell that he was forcing himself to. He brought his face to her ear as he whispered, "You can keep pretending you want to get away, if you want, Lena, if that makes it more fun...but we both know you like it."

Lena felt her heart pace quicken and her nerves began to tingle as he tucked her small body into his, beneath his chin.

His arms clenched around her tightly in a hug, but Lena struggled to breathe as he continued to crush her ribs.

She began to pull away and he grabbed her wrists again, throwing her down onto his destroyed bed.

"I want you, Lena. And I always get what I want."

His voice sounded more dangerous than she had ever heard it before.

 _This can't be Draco._

She was so used to him controlling his temper around her, until recently, at least.

"I don't want this right now, Draco," she squealed as he lifted her skirt, still holding her hands. "Let me go!"

She dreaded that she had put the curses on the door. It only sanctioned this. She kept struggling to get away from him. But despite how hard she tried, she wished she had spent the time in the gym, instead of the library.

He pulled her throng down her legs, his eyes not moving from hers. Her thoughts returned to his words from before. She was so comfortable with Draco. Every moment she was with him she enjoyed. But not this. She wasn't ready for _this._

 _Accio wand!_ she thought silently, but the dreaded thing only twitched slightly. _Accio wand! ACCIO WAND!_

Nothing.

Draco's hands moved over her body, she cringed away from his touch, kicking her legs at him, and he began to struggle to hold her still.

"Ugh, _Lena,_ if I let go, do you promise to stay put, like a good little girl?" His eyes flared in anger.

She nodded submissively, with a pout.

He released the grip on her wrists and Lena smacked him across the face. And in is stunned moment, Lena kicked him in the chest off the bed. She back away from him on the bed, getting to her knees, preparing to flee off the bed.

Draco was still rising from the floor when she had ran to the door, but a rope shot from his wand and tightened her feet together. Lena crashed forward onto the floor. She flipped her body around, and Draco was standing over her. He grabbed her arm and pulled her onto the now debris-free bed.

With his wand, he shot ropes from his wand again, at her hands and feet, so that they where bound to the bed's headboard and foot-board and she regretted wearing a dress instead of jeans.

"Please, Draco... You can't do this."

"Yes, I can. You're mine." he growled, and suddenly, Lena's was looking in the eyes of a ten-year old.

 _"I love you, Lena," Draco said, his light blonde hair was messy, and Lena couldn't resist running her hands through it and she gave him a kiss on the cheek._

 _She heard her childish giggle echo against the water in the lake at the edge of manor. "I love you, too, Draco." She felt the dried tears on her cheeks that had been streaming down her face just an hour earlier._

 _"Will you promise me something?" He said. He smiled his cheeky smile, and his chubby cheeks puffed out, despite his thin frame. Lena could only giggle again, looking in his eyes, waiting for him to tell her what._

 _"Can't I hear it first?" She demanded, pushing his shoulder lightly._

 _"No." He smirked defiantly._

 _"You're going to make me promise you something, but I can't know what it is?"_

 _He nodded slowly, his eyes not moving from hers._

 _"Fine." She sat with her arms crossed in defeat, pouting at the young boy._

 _"Promise you'll be mine forever."_

 _"I promise." There was no hesitation in her voice._

 _"You're mine." He wasn't speaking to her. He was saying it to himself._

 _"Is this really happening?"_

"You knew this would happen eventually," he said, and Lena snapped back into reality.

Lena didn't realize that she had asked it aloud. She tried to draw her hands to her face, but forgot that she couldn't move them more than an inch. She felt her tears rushing through her tear ducts and she struggled to cover her face by turning it against the bed. Tears ran down over her nose and dripped onto the bed.

"Lena?"

She couldn't bring herself to look at him, to look into those magnificent gray eyes and only see the flaws.

"Lena," he repeated, this time as a demand.

"What?" she muttered. She felt the ropes release her and she curled into a ball on the bed. She cringed at Draco's touch as he moved to rub her back. He immediately withdrew his hand.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I don't know what got into me."

She heard the lie through his clenched teeth.

* * *

Draco's POV

* * *

She didn't reply, she didn't turn to look at him. He wanted to grab her shoulder and force her to. He restrained himself.

"Please, Lena, you know I wouldn't do that to you..." He paused. "Unless you wanted it, of course." He smirked.

She didn't move.

"I was just pissed off." He was telling himself that more than her. He wanted to look into her emerald eyes and hear that she forgave him. As she always did.

 _Please, Lena,_ he said to himself.

"Can we just talk about it?"

Finally, Lena twitched.

"What is there to talk about, Draco," she spat coldly.

"I just.. _look_ at me, Lena!" He growled threateningly.

He saw her shift uncomfortably, and finally raise herself until her eyes were level with his, sitting with her legs pressed into her chest and her arms wrapped around them. She looked like a little girl. The little girl he had met, so many years ago.

Now that he was finally in the position to tell her the truth, he couldn't bring himself to mouth the words out loud. He didn't want Lena to know. He didn't even want to believe he had done it. Yet there were so many things raging in his mind, he couldn't pick which one his was the most ashamed of, the most pissed off at. Even the fear radiated of the Dark Lord finding out.

 _It would be better if she found out than hear something a hundred times worse from Weasley or Potter._

He drew a slow breath.

"I fucked up."

He struggled to look into her eyes. He wanted her to give him comfort, but she just stared at him, waiting for the rest. He swallowed at the lump in his throat, gazing at everything behind Lena's head, at her hair and down her shoulders to her breasts- anywhere but in her eyes. He closed his eyes to excuse himself.

"I fucked up...really bad this time."

* * *

Lena's POV

* * *

Draco's words still rang in her ears. Even though she was in Advanced Transfiguration, and he was in Divination. She smirked at how hard she had tried to get Draco to drop that class because of its pointlessness; his argument was that nothing valid could be taught in this school anyway, and Trelawney loved him. Easy grade, he'd said. She couldn't hold the smirk. She was too worried about him.

Draco wouldn't tell her what he'd done. She tried to figure it out from any clues he'd given away, but didn't find any in her memory.

She was so curious, but at the same time, knew that nothing good came from Draco keeping things from her. The last time he'd done it, it'd be Parkinson; the time before that, Daphne Greengrass. She stopped herself from going back further than that.

 _I wouldn't have cared about his stupid girlfriends if he would have just told me about them in the first place? What kind of best friend keeps things like that secret?_

She paused.

 _Who's it this time?_

She completely ignored the fact that Draco had almost taken advantage of her using his strength. Her heart beat faster just knowing that he wanted her that badly-everything Draco said was right. He was more cunning and witty than Lena, he had always been, even if Lena read more books than him. How could he make so many more mistakes than her? All Lena could think about was the jealous rage burning through her as she thought of Draco being with yet _another_ girl.

She scolded herself for thinking such thoughts, knowing that she didn't need to have things like this happening right now.

"Yavari." Of course, McGonagall picked her. Of course.

Lena dragged her thoughts back to class reluctantly.

* * *

A solid wood, dark mahogany door stared back at Lena.

 _Knock, knock._

She waited a cool minute.

 _Knock, knock!_

She heard the bustling inside and her mind immediately drifted to what Severus Snape would be doing alone. His long dark hair covered his pale face.

"Yes?"

She noticed that he kindly kept the door open only a few inches.

"Another time?"

Snape nodded and Lena walked off knowingly. Wondering if it had been a woman, or his hand.

Lena shrugged it off and walked outside of the castle into the chilly twilight. Snow covered several inches above the ground. Grabbing her cloak from her messenger bag, she drew it around her slowly, and clasped it at her neck. Her arms whipped her hair out from underneath her robes and she let it flow freely in the soft breeze.

Inhaling slowly, she closed her eyes for a moment, testing reality. She opened her eyes and let out a cloud of steamy air. She took a step forward and out towards the forest, where no snow would cover the ground.

The night grew dark quickly, and before she even reached a clearing with a place to sit, she was eclipsed in darkness.

She missed Blaise's warm arms wrapping around her in the cold weather. His feather-light kisses running up and down her neck, searching desperately for her mouth. She felt a single tear escape from her eye and roll down her cheek, over her lips, and she tasted the salty tear regretfully.

Hearing the light footsteps, Lena froze, but she knew it was him.

"Draco..." She whispered.

She saw his light blonde hair and his silvery eyes emerge from the thick trees.

"You know, it's dangerous out here, in the forest. It's forbidden for a reason."

He was treating her like a little girl who didn't know how to take care of herself.

"Maybe that's why I like it," she said hesitantly, trying to gauge his expression. She looked at Draco in his silvery gray eyes, and she sensed that something was on his mind. The same thing that had been on his mind earlier. The two sat in silence for a long time. Lena shivered, if not from the cold, then from the endless thoughts in her head.

Draco misinterpreted, and piled another cloak over her, leaving himself in only a long sleeve shirt. He didn't look cold, for once.

"There's some things I have to tell you," he said. "I can't keep any more secrets from you, Lena; I just feel so guilty."

Lena's heart stopped. Her mind raced in curiosity, and she shivered again.

"I did it."

"What?" Lena demanded curiously, a rush of heat flowed through her body.

"I killed Blaise."

"No, you didn't, I did, I shot the very curse from my wand." Lena felt the tears rushing to her eyes again; she knew what he was going to say. She didn't want to hear it. She didn't want to believe it. She couldn't choke any more words out.

"I did. I made him stand there instead of the muggle that was supposed to. I did it, and I'm so sorry, Lena. I've never felt so guilty in my life-"

"You..." Lena growled, but Draco interrupted.

"There are so many things he did against you, that you have no idea about. Nobody but him knew what he was doing all the time. But please, believe me, Lena- He. Didn't. Deserve. You."

"Why?" Her face was stone cold, no emotion, no expression. "Why would you did this to me?" Her voice sounded hollow.

Draco spent a well calculated minute choosing his next words, and Lena only shook with anger as she watched him.

"I walked in on him fucking Pansy Parkinson, okay? And before that he was letting a bunch of the guys talk about you like you were a piece of meat-"

Lena stood and walked away, but he grabbed her arm. "Let go of me! Who do you think you are? You can't keep me here. I don't want to listen to you anymore, Draco Malfoy. I'm sick of your shit. All you do is try to mess with me. You have fucked so many other girls, but you kill anyone who touches me. Is that how this works in your fucked up little mind? Now, LET GO!"

Lena screamed again in fury as he didn't let go. Instead, he drew his wand. "Perificus Totalus."

Her body tightened and clenched up. She fell backwards and starred up at Draco with all the anger she could muster with her eyes alone.

"I'll let you go once you promise to calm down. I just want to talk."

Lena ignored him and began trying to get her wand using her mind powers. Trying...and failing.

Draco released her after a long time, probably when he realized that she was going to freeze to death due to the fact that she couldn't shiver to create the friction necessary to keep her warm, or maybe he was just giving up on her, realizing that she was going to be pissed off about this one for a while.

Standing from the cold ground, she shot a sly glance at Draco. "So what's the other thing, then?"

 _Please, Merlin, don't let it be worse._

Draco immediately looked away from her, down at the ground in shame. He must have been hoping that she had forgotten.

"Just tell me, it can't be that bad."

Draco shook his head. "I don't know if you would even want to know."

Lena rolled his eyes, and Draco finally caved, he spoke.

"I almost killed Granger."

" _WHAT?"_


	33. Chapter 33

Thirty-Three

* * *

Draco's POV

* * *

"You can't being doing these things this close to your initiation! What if the Dark Lord were to find out?" Lena screamed.

"Lena! It's not like I _did_ kill her! The only reason I'm telling you is so you can go help her," he admitted.

"What?" Lena was staring in his eyes with the most hate and misunderstanding, an expression he'd never seen her use.

"I dragged her into a closet and I left her there, I didn't want her to know it was me. I obviously can't go back, she'll know it was me." He heard his voice sounding so desperate, and he despised himself for it, but he knew his memory charms were not anywhere near perfect.

"You are such a bloody idiot, Draco," she breathed slowly, she looked like she was restraining herself from slapping him. "You better explain yourself."

"I was just so pissed off Lena; I don't know what came over me. What was I supposed to do?!"

Lena rolled her eyes at his pathetic excuse, "A couple memory charms maybe? Take her to the hospital wing? Or maybe just leave her where she can be found?" Draco looked down in shame. He saw how hard she was trying to stay calm, to breathe slowly. To not blow up.

She stormed away from him, likely to find Granger.

She left him in the cold, dark clearing without a cloak.

"By the way, maybe we should take a break for a while," she yelled back at him harshly.

 _What a bitch._ Draco punched a tree.

Crack, crack, crack.

Draco pulled his hand back suddenly, filching in pain. He gazed at his bloody knuckles and swore he saw bone piercing through. He dropped his hand to his side and stared at the tree for a long time. Slowly, he moved.

He sat on the stump he and Lena had been sitting on and he gazed down at his hand, withdrawing his wand clumsily from his pocket. He felt the loss of control from using his opposite hand. He winced continually at even the slightest movement. For some reason, he enjoyed the pain, the tolerance it took him to keep himself from crying out in pain. He laughed hollowly into the diminishing evening.

On any other day, Draco wouldn't have fixed it himself. But today wasn't any other day. He didn't feel like going to someone and getting them to fix this for him. This was _his_ problem. Not Lena's.

Hey, maybe he was just torturing himself. Who knows?

He shot the charm at his hand, of course attempting to heal it-

* * *

Lena's POV

* * *

When Lena heard Draco's shriek of pain, it took everything in her to stop herself from going back to him.

 _I can't keep running back to him._

She wanted to run to him and kiss him all over and nurse him back to health, whatever he had done. But she knew that this was for the best.

* * *

Lena had checked all of the doors on the third and fourth floors before she rushed to the basement by Professor Snape's classroom.

Empty.

Empty.

Empty.

Lena screamed.

She checked the corridor for anyone that had heard her screaming.

Nobody.

 _How long has she been here?_ Lena asked herself as she slammed the door shut behind her.

Granger looked up at her desperately. Lena was reminded of how the two had once been acquaintances. Mutual hating each other, while not arguing that the other was intelligent.

The poor girl looked like she'd been through hell.

She shot spells faster than she ever had in her life. Firing at her the counter-curse of everything she knew Draco used against enemies. As soon as Granger was released, Lena kneeled next to her and ran the glowing tip of her wand over the wounds, and then over her temples, removing the memories and pouring them into a vile.

"Thank you," Granger said breathlessly, the light in her eyes dimming, and she blacked out before she could finish everything she wanted to say.

* * *

She sat in the astronomy tower and looked out at the gigantic moon shining out over Hogwarts.

Granger's sleeping body was near her, on a stone bench with a pillow and a thin blanket covering her. Her face held a slight smile in her sleep. Lena relaxed, and spoke out loud into the night.

"Why do I always have to fix everything?" But in her mind, she asked an entirely different question.

 _How can I ever forgive him?_

The brightness of the full moon hurt her eyes; she raised her palms to cover her face. She felt the tears coming.

 _Maybe Draco and I aren't going to work out the way we thought we were so long ago..._

The warm drops began to flow freely and smeared her make-up. Lena didn't care.

 _He doesn't care about me. He doesn't care about me._

She kept repeating.

She broke down and lost track of time.

Granger stirred.

Immediately stifling her sobs, Lena charmed herself to look perfect once again. And she disappeared, before Granger fully awoke.

Lena picked her path for the next three floors and ran. She hated getting stuck for ten minutes waiting for one of the slow moving staircases.

She went immediately to the Slytherin common room. She expected to walk in, and see Draco in his throne, babbling to people about how important he was.

For some reason, as Lena spoke the password, she felt something was wrong, she knew he wasn't there. It was too quiet. She didn't need to check the chair to see if Draco was there. She left the brick wall open, not looking back to see if the stones were closing. Many Slytherins were very intent on keeping their common room secret, keeping their dormitories secret; there were many illegal belongings lurking.

She entered the forest and she was sprinting through the brush, whacking herself with several branches in her urgency.

 _Please be okay, please be okay._

* * *

Draco's POV

* * *

 _At least if I die, I deserve it._

His pounding hand was pooling blood onto the damp ground, but he didn't care, he couldn't feel the pain anymore. The longer he laid there, the more sure he was that this was making him stronger, not weaker. He refused to raise his wand again with his left hand. He couldn't cast a spell accurately, and when he had first tried to heal his hand, it ended up exploding back at him, snapping something else in his hand, which he couldn't feel and refused to look at.

He was shivering. He suddenly regretted giving Lena his cloak. It hadn't made him look any better in the situation. That was for sure.

Draco knew that the temperature was below zero. He used his control to make himself stop shivering, it hurt his hand too much. The ground was inured, solid as ice, he shifted uncomfortably.

 _This isn't so bad._

"Are you suicidal?" she hissed, but he didn't care what she said, he was just so insanely happy to hear her voice. To hear that she loved him enough to come back for him.

"Lena..." He whispered and he felt himself losing his ability to form the words on his lips. His eyes grew darker, he was so tired, he just wanted to hold her in his arms in his bed. "I'm so sorry," he breathed.


	34. Chapter 34

Thirty-Four

"I can't believe it's almost February." She spoke out loud, but only to herself, looking out the tall window in the dormitory, out over the freezing winter wonderland that lay outside. A light shower of snowflakes streamed steadily outside, and had been for the last few weeks. She hadn't seen it stop yet; then again, she really didn't pay that much attention to it.

Draco had just gotten out of the hospital last week, but she knew he was mooching the time off of school, and the sycophant Slytherins who would do his homework for him in a heartbeat.

 _Such a manipulator._

She was still furious with him. After she had made sure he was safe, she'd left him to rot in the hospital wing.

"Me either," he said, his voice trailing, and it echoed back in her ears like a hiss.

Lena always forgot about Tom. He was too busy too pay attention to her anyway. He was always off, doing his own thing, this was their first exchange of words to each other in weeks.

Lena had the sudden suspicion that he was taking his place at his portrait, enticing other girls. Or maybe just watching. She wasn't sure how creepy Tom was just yet. She had used that very stall for two years.

"Not jealous, are you, dear?" the hiss echoed quietly.

Lena finally looked at the snake, who hung up on her canopy posts. He winded down the pole and onto the ground, his body making the slow slithering sound as it moved.

Suddenly, Tom transformed into himself- or his human self...

He was naked, and a question sparked.

"Why are you wearing clothes some times, and not others?"

"I can do whatever I want," he hissed, pulling her roughly onto the bed and moving on top of her, closing her curtains briskly.

Lena felt her heartbeat quicken and the tingling sensation swept through her body. She looked down at him as he began to move closer. He moved slowly, tormenting her. It took every ounce of her control not to make a sound as he took her clothes off and he moved to enter her.

"Now, shut up and let me enjoy this," he snapped sternly.

Lena shrieked as he withdrew and pushed in, hard. He pounded into her again and she arched her back to welcome him, if only to please him, but he hit her away as soon as she made the motion.

Tom held her hands above her head, angry with her, pressing her wrists into the bed roughly. He made sure she knew of his position over her. She screamed in pain.

"Shut. Up." He repeated loudly, hitting her again, and covering her mouth with one hand and holding her hands with the other, moving in and out of her slowly as he spoke each of the words clearly. "We don't want anyone walking in on this, now, do we?"

By the end of it, Lena felt the tears drying on her face down her cheeks, and over her temples.

Tom came into her and his body collapsed on top of her.

Tom kissed her on the forehead. "That's a good girl." And suddenly it was the snake and it coiled, ready to strike. Lena used her arms and legs to propel herself backward as the snake used a surprising amount of strength to push her knees down against the bed, recoiling, it struck before Lena could react, leaving a gaping and bloody wound on her inner thigh.

* * *

Lena sprawled on her bed, her curtains drawn, a rare occasion, exhausted from the day's classes. She didn't dare move her legs. She had been limping all day because of Tom. The wound couldn't be healed with magic or herbs, or anything it seemed, and wouldn't stop bleeding. Forcing Lena to leave multiple times during each class to tend to the wound, for it was bleeding through the thick layers of bandages. She wanted to be mad at him, and she was planning on it, but when she had entered her dormitory, he was no where to be seen. Guys were good at that, knowing when they were in for an argument.

She fell into a light nap.

She heard the slithering outside the door. She opened her eyes; night had already fallen.

 _I must have fallen asleep._

She watched as he entered underneath the door, moving up to her bed until he was next to her, he transformed into Tom Marvolo Riddle at seventeen, once again.

"I'm not doing this," she snapped, pushing him away. He moved to grab her arm, but she twisted away from him. He scowled, pressing his fingers into the wound on her thigh threateningly. She sensed his anger and ran away as quickly as her wound would allow, before he changed his mind about letting her go-if he indeed had.

Once again, Lena headed for Professor Snape's door, hoping that he would be able to fit in a lesson before she passed out from exhaustion. She passed a mirror in the corridor and she stopped dead.

She turned to look at herself, and she saw her now very bony cheekbones. Her face looked hollow, her cheeks sucked in. She looked down at her tiny frame and suddenly felt very hungry.

She ignored the hunger pains as she limped to the deep mahogany dungeon door, which lead to the professor's office, her footsteps silent on the stone floor.

Before Lena even had the chance to knock, it cracked open, and Lena knew that she had once again disturbed him at the wrong time. But when was the right time if he was always snogging some chick-

Granger exited and glanced at Lena coldly as she noticed her standing stupefied in the hallway, and she clutched her books into her chest; her knuckles were white.

" _Granger_?" she muttered out loud, more in surprise than in humor; however, Granger wasn't one to take such a thing lightly.

Her gaze narrowed at Granger and she felt her anger rising to the surface. Her fingers diligently touched her wand at her side.

The mahogany door snapped fully open.

"Professor," Lena nodded at a very upset Snape.

"What is it, Miss Yavari?" he growled in a way that he had never spoken to her before.

"A lesson, perhaps," she asked skeptically, already knowing the answer. She turned to look at Granger, but the quiet girl had crept away.

"Your new toy, Severus?" She hissed, pushing the professor back into his office, ignoring the pain as she pretended the wound didn't exist- an ability she only pocessed when somebody was watching her. She slammed the door behind her. She felt her anger bubbling to the surface and she struggled to control it.

"Stay out of it, Lena-Miss Yavari," he snapped.

Lena speedily stepped in front of him as he crafted his exit, a surge of pain erupted from her leg. Snatching his tie, she pulled it at it, until Severus was struggling for breath, pleading with his eyes for sweet oxygen to run through his veins again.

Lena pushed forcefully at him and he backed into a wall. She withdrew her wand. Severus was panting for breath against the wall, rubbing his sore neck.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, what would the Dark Lord say?" she taunted.

"What are you talking about?" he yelled.

"Why, I'm talking about you and that...mudblood," she said through clenched teeth, her back to him. She felt his eyes piercing the back of her head from the hairs on the back of her neck. She breathed slowly. She felt his anger pulsating in the room with hers. "Can't get enough of them, can you, Severus?"

"Shut up!" he screamed savagely.

"First Lily Evans, and now this...Granger."

"SHUT UP!" he yelled louder, trying to contain himself to usual composure.

She shook her head in disbelief and turned to face him.

"It's not what you think," he lied casually, his demeanor changing.

Lena began to pace in front of the man.

"You're afraid of me," she observed. Her mind was racing and she didn't know why Severus feared her so much. She almost hated herself for how much she was enjoying this. His face showed no sign of it, but he didn't dare move. Snape was always good at controlling himself, but now, how could Lena make him lose his place of superiority, above her, so easily?

The control was intoxicating.

"It's not what you think..." He repeated, almost pleading.

"What else could it be?" she retorted. "Rictusempra _!"_

She didn't know why she did it; because she was mad at the pain, mad at Snape, or because she was mad at Draco. Snape flipped and slammed into the wall.

"Let's just keep this conversation our little secret, and the Dark Lord won't find out," she spat fiercely.

* * *

"I heard about what you did."

Lena's black leather jacket clung tightly to her shoulders in the chilly outside air. She inhaled the smoke of her lit cigarette. Enjoying this rare break. Which was now interrupted. She breathed out the smoke, but her breath still showed in the cold air. It was the next morning.

Her leg was still bleeding, though it was somewhat more controllable. The pain had only gotten worse, she had blacked out from pain the night before, or loss of blood- she wasn't sure.

"What, Tom?" She spun around to face him. He gazed at her with his chocolate eyes and she melted submissively into his gaze. She glanced away from his eyes for a moment to look at the forest.

The moon was covered by the thick snow clouds and Lena knew nobody could see them even if they stood not but ten feet away. She closed her eyes for a long moment, and already knew something horrible was coming just from the look in his eyes.

"I heard about what you did," he growled this time, and she felt her body clench in fright from his anger. She felt his warm breath on her neck and she crossed her arms as a sudden chill ran through her body. Her gaze dropped to the ground and she felt herself becoming emotionless as she slowed her breathing, trying to regain control of her emotions.

Turning around, she looked in his eyes, searching for what he was speaking of. He expected her to know, and each second she did not respond, he would punish her more. She didn't let herself get scared. There was a long silence and just when Lena had decided she couldn't take it anymore, he spoke-

"You helped a mudblood."

Her eyes dropped to the dirt again in shame this time. She took a step back away from him. Not in fear, but in self defense, her hand instinctively went to draw her wand.

He slapped her and she dropped to the ground with the force, her wand flying out of reach. She clutched her cheek but she dared not rise against the Dark Lord- at any age.

He grabbed her wrist and pulled to her to feet. He wanted to fight, for her to fight back. But she would refuse.

As Lena shrieked into the night, she prayed someone would be listening, that someone would help her. It was endless, the pain was infinite. She didn't let herself show her fear. He couldn't know how scared she really was. It would only make him angrier.

* * *

"Severus is no longer capable of your abilities, Lena," Tom droned.

They were in her broom closet that served as her classroom. She had learned more in this room in the past year than she had in her entire five years of classes at Hogwarts. And now she sat in the chair at the desk as he paced in what little room there was.

"He will no longer be educating you. I know you were expecting him to take over after the Holidays, but I will take it from here."

Lena nodded, looking in his eyes. All she could see was the terror she had been through the night before. But she ignored it, and she pushed it to the back of her mind, for later, when she was alone.

She breathed slowly and evenly as she gazed at the book lying open, flinching slightly as she sensed Tom moving closer to her, until he was behind her chair, looking down over her shoulder. Lena's eyes didn't meet his, just stared at the book on the desk.

Tom looked gorgeous that morning, of course... His brown hair was messy, despite every other one of his perfections.

He began to straighten his hair, as if he knew what she was thinking.

 _He does know what I'm thinking,_ she reminded herself.

Tom chuckled to himself, but she knew it was at her thoughts. She desperately wanted him out of her mind, but she knew she could trust him. He was her master, her friend, her lover, _her savior._

And her first lesson with Tom began.

* * *

 _Her vanity stared back at her with uncanny beauty. Lena smirked and flung herself around as he appeared._

 _She nodded. "Father."_

 _"You cannot go. I forbid you. Do not make me repeat myself."_

 _"I'm old enough to know what's best for me."_

 _"You're thirteen-years-old, Rosalena; you will not leave this house."_

 _She screamed in fury and threw everything on her vanity to the floor, shattering several picture frames. She punched the mirror in front of her and it shattered before her bloody knuckles._

 _When she turned around, her father was gone. She reached for the doorknob, and, not to her surprise, of course, found it locked._

 _She screamed in fury again and she felt her magic building up with her rage. A vase of flowers shattered on her desk, drenching the summer's school work in water. Six other vases around the room exploded and Lena moved her to bathroom._

 _When she was done, she was satisfied. She withdrew her wand from the rubble on the ground beside the vanity. The balcony was seven floors above the ground. But she had to go. She had to._

 _Draco would come for her. He needed her._

 _How could father do this to her?_

 _Her mind raced and she began to scale the side of the house, climbing down slowly, avoiding her father's study, which was not too far below her._

 _Her heart was pounding and all she could tell herself was not to look down._

Don't look down, Lena, don't look down, Lena, _she repeated to herself over and over again. She inched down and night shrouded the estate. She closed her eyes for a second and looked up at her window. She had barely made it a floor. Regretfully, she gazed down._

 _Her finger tips grew sweaty against the hard, slippery, smooth stone. She desperately searched for a better grasping point, but found none in the tiny cracks between the stone._

 _Her heart raced and she knew that this was it. She was going to die and everyone would think she killed herself._

This is it.

 _She had never tried harder in her life to find something, some way to save herself. But as she seconds passed she knew that her wand was in her pocket, but if she even withdrew one finger she would certainly fall to her death._

 _She tried to push her fingers deeper into the cracks and her body rebounded backwards slightly in the effort._

 _Her foot slipped on the less than an inch of ledge her life was depending on._

 _She whimpered and tried to scream out. But each noise she made only caused her to shake more and make it impossible to hang on._

 _"NO, NO, NO, NO!" she screamed, flailing to grab any part of the flat stones to save her life._

 _A rush of air behind her and she knew that she was falling to her certain death._

 _The rush of blood to her head caused her vision to dim. She hit something, hard, and she blacked out._

 _"She's alive, she's okay, Yavari, don't you worry about it. I got her. She's okay."_

 _She heard her father and her mother's cries behind her closed eyes._

 _Snapping them open, she gazed at him._

 _The Dark Lord._

 _She felt herself drawing away in fear._

 _"It's okay, Lena, I'm not going to hurt you..."_

The Dark Lord saved my life _, was all she remembered thinking._ What an honor.

* * *

Lena awoke in her dormitory and she wanted nothing more than to remember what her dream had been. She was still shaken, from whatever it had been. But she didn't remember, no matter how hard she tried to comb her brain and focus. She remembered it had been about him. The Dark Lord. Tom.

Slowing her breathing, she checked the time, and let her thoughts invade.

Her lesson with Tom was merely his excuse to hurt her. He had already given her a wound that had not fully healed and it had been days. The stinging pain had finally numbed a little bit, but Lena wondered if that was merely from actual numbing, and not healing. He had spent the entire lesson forcing Lena to nervously cast spells and each mistake was met with terrible spells in punishment; he wouldn't heal her until long after the spells were cast, and would just watch her, curled in pain on the floor. When the lesson was finally finished, Lena had left the broom cupboard as quickly as she could while still being polite. She had grimaced as she saw the small pools of blood everywhere on the floor, _her blood_ , and her knees buckled weakly as she had to force herself to walk away, with each step new eruptions of excruciation clenched throughout her body.

She found herself thinking about him torturing her, two nights ago, for helping Granger. It was the worst amount of pain she had ever been in. _For how long?_ Each second had lasted an hour as she had screamed out. Nobody had heard her. Nobody had saved her as he tortured her. How could nobody hear her? Why was it that day that nobody chose to follow her and spy on her? He had dragged her through the dirt as though she were a rag doll, though, most of it was cloudy because she was blacking out and hardly awaking again before she would black out again, only hearing him muttering words: _disgrace, filthy, mudblood._

Her body shivered at her reminiscing and she felt a tear surface. She quickly pulled it back, composing herself as she entered her dormitory.

Lena moved to her desk and shuffled the school work away. She sat down in the hard wood chair that she had never minded until this day. Her entire body was swollen with pain. She tried to charm it away, but each spell she tried only made the pain worse. And after the third one, she gave up.

She would have to deal with this.


	35. Chapter 35

Thirty-Five

"Slut."

Lena stopped dead in her tracks. She spun to find the culprit who was provoking her, but nobody even glanced in her direction. The only person who could have said it was-

"Pothead."

"Watch it, Yavari, you don't want any trouble." Weasley.

Lena trembled slightly; she diligently breathed, calming herself, standing tall, despite her pain, managing to surpress the pain for a short while.

"It's you that doesn't want any trouble, Weasel." _You don't know who you're messing with,_ she thought arrogantly.

Lena watched as Potter and Granger moved for their wands slowly, until they were pointed at her. Weasley was slow to follow, as usual.

"Oh, I see, you're looking for trouble," she coaxed in a soft voice.

Lena smirked at Granger, who was eying her carefully, evaluating the situation.

 _What's their problem with me? Nobody starts shit with me._

"Flipendo!"

Lena shot backwards, smacking her cheek on the stone cold floor after three backflips. Every wound that had healed even slightly was torn open. She felt blood seeping through her jeans rapidly at her inner thigh. With every ounce of strength she could muster, she rose to her feet, knowing the blood pooling all over her body was growing more and more visible.

Granger, Potter, and Weasley kept shooting. Lena dodged three more curses before finally reacting. She withdrew her wand and aimed: "RICTUSEMPRA, STUPEFY, LEVICORPUS!"

Weasley crippled over in laughter, Granger shot backwards into the wall behind them, and Potter dangled in front of her, upside-down, his robes falling into and over his face.

"What are you playing at, Potter?" She spat, unintentionally letting her frigid ignorance of the pain overwhelm her and limped toward him. He didn't answer. She enjoyed the tension that ran in the silence. The silent fear that hung above them, that betrayed Weasley's laughter. She looked at each and every one of them individually.

"You better watch your backs, 'cause you just made an enemy."

Walking away, Lena flipped her hair back over her shoulder, smirking with victory as she heard Potter smack to the ground, heading back to her dormitory to bandage her fresh lesions. When she finished, she headed toward the Great Hall, feeling the hunger pains abate the closer she got to the double doors, nothing compared to her other pain.

She forced herself to go and eat anyway, she didn't like Skeletor looking back at her every time she wanted check her appearance.

She was enjoying her meal, when, as usual, a gang of Slytherin bullies pushed their way past some first years, Draco Malfoy at the lead.

Lena rolled her eyes and tried to scarf the toast down that lay in front of her.

She couldn't eat fast enough.

"Lena, Lena, Lena."

Draco looked disgusted at how she was eating, but he didn't say it. She knew him too well, he wouldn't insult her about it until they were in private, if ever.

 _It's not like I have marmalade all over my face,_ she scolded him silently.

The girl forced her eyes back down to her plate and she took a sip of orange juice. She felt embarrassed, but she hid it well. She rarely ate, and she hated eating recently. She stood and walked away from Draco, who didn't bother to hide that he was following her out without eating himself.

"Lena!" he yelled behind her. She heard his patter of footsteps increase and she stopped to look at him, knowing she would be unable to hide her injuries if she ran from him.

"What?" she drawled, tired.

She saw his face change, and he pulled her into an empty classroom. Lena sat on a table and looked at him, placing her hands on either side of her for support.

"I was just...wondering if you would hang out with me today, so we can talk?"

He was forcing himself to make it a question, not a demand. Lena looked away, out the window into the melting snow. Spring would be upon Hogwarts soon.

"I can't. I have a lot to do."

She wanted to tell him the truth. That she was in too much pain to do much of anything. That she was studying with Tom. That he was teaching her all of his greatest secrets. But she knew Draco. Draco would be furious. Furiously jealous.

Guilt clogged her throat as she thought of herself having sex with Tom. Betraying Draco, who had not been with a single girl since he'd broken up with Parkinson months before.

Draco Malfoy wasn't the type of guy who had to go without sex. Girls threw themselves at him, the Prince of Slytherin. The drop dead sexy bad-boy of Hogwarts.

Who could resist?

Lena looked back at Draco from the floor, he looked solemn at her answer.

She immediately felt guiltier than before for saying no to him. But she was still angry at him for everything he had put her through.

 _He did it all because he loves you,_ something inside her said.

She shoved the thought aside, denying it and deeming it false immediately.

She stood and began to walk towards the door.

Draco moved to block her.

"Tired of being so polite, Draco?" she hissed as she tried to push past him, but he easily held his ground. He seemed to be nearly a foot taller than her, now.

 _When did he get so tall?_

It had been so long since she had been this close to him, she immediately tried to get out of the situation. He grabbed her arms and forced her to look at him before she could even try to get away. Lena flinched in pain.

She watched as he swallowed. "Lena, will you _please_ come with me today? I miss you."

She nodded in defeat, knowing that he would never take no as an answer. And when it came to men that wanted things, especially Draco, it was better to just give it to them than to deal with all the anger.

* * *

For some reason, Lena reached to the bottom of her trunk and withdrew a pair of muggle skinny jeans. She enjoyed certain muggle clothes, for their practicality, and their illusiveness. After all of her bandages were replaced, she slid into the jeans and pulled on a tank top and a cardigan. She slipped into a pair of boots and left the room, locking her trunk. She withdrew her cloak from the coat rack and put it around her neck, clasping the front.

Draco waited at the foot of the stairs. _Trying to be a gentleman_ , she thought bitterly, but took his extended arm without hesitation, wanting his support to help her walk without showing the agony she was in.

He immediately began to lead her from the common room.

"What are we going to do today?" she asked.

"It's a surprise," he replied ominously.

"I don't like surprises," she retorted.

"I know you don't."

Lena rolled her eyes and continued out the front doors to the front of the castle. Draco helped her down the icy stairs with skill and they continued their normal walk around the school until they came to the Quidditch fields.

"What are we doing here?" she asked hesitantly as he began to unlock the storage cabinet for the Slytherin brooms.

"My favorite thing."

Lena turned her back on him and didn't reply, looking at the tall Quidditch hoops made her queasy.

She'd given a note from her parents to the school that had said she didn't have to take flying lessons because she already have a private flying instructor at home. It had been forged.

She felt his presence behind her and she spoke as she felt his breath on her neck.

"I don't want to."

"Too bad you don't have a choice," he said quickly, grabbing onto her and the broom began to rise into the air.

Lena screamed, and began to struggle to get off the broom before it was too late, too high to jump.

Draco was too strong and the broom rose too quickly.

"DRACO LUCIUS MALFOY, LET ME DOWN THIS SECOND BEFORE I CRUCIO THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF YOU!"

"No," he whispered defiantly in her ear, rising higher and higher until they were at the lowest Quidditch hoop. "This was supposed to be romantic, you know. You're ruining it."

"YOU'RE RUINING MY LIFE, LET ME DOWN!" she screamed, as she screamed and kicked, pain surged through her.

"Lena, when are you going to learn that when I want something...I get it."

Lena tried to calm herself down, but she couldn't. She couldn't breathe. She was so high up. She was going to fall.

Draco began to swerve the broom as though he were drunk. Lena screamed as he almost made her fall off twice.

"Stop, Draco, please!" she yelled. She felt the tears streaming down her face and she was pushing Draco's arms off of her, away from her. Clinging on to the broomstick for dear life, she hated him for this. He laughed loudly in her ear from behind, finally lowering the broom to the ground.

Lena jumped off and began to run away from the boy, limping, she assumed because of more ruptured wounds on her body, hidden beneath her clothes.

He caught her quickly and tried to force her to face him, she refused with all her might, squirming so he wouldn't see her tears.

"What's wrong, Lena?" he demanded.

"Leave me alone, Draco Malfoy," she whispered silently, wishing he would let go of her arm.

"What's wrong, Lena?" he repeated, he anger rising. "I only wanted to have fun with you for one day, and you just can't drop everything for one hour to be with me-" He had finally gotten her to face him.

"Why are you crying?" He looked shocked. "What's going on?"

"I said, Leave. Me. ALONE." She smacked him and he backed off, letting go of her arm.

She spun around and walked away coldly, but Draco followed behind.

"Lena, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. I don't know what I said, but I'm sorr-"

"Are you stupid, Draco? It's not what you said, it's what you did!"

"What did I do?" he shouted.

"I kind of have a fear of heights, okay?" she yelled back after a second of silence, and her breathing was heavy. _And I'm in a tremendous amount of pain_ , she said to herself. She felt like she was going to whimper again but she held it back.

She wiped her tears away with a swish of her arm and turned away from Draco Malfoy again, trying to compose herself.

"I'm sorry, Lena." He muttered. It was the first time he actually sounded like he meant it.

"You should be," she retorted coldly, however, she didn't move to leave.

He put his arms around her and forced her to hug him back. He pressed her face into his chest and she breathed in his smell of spice and boyishness.

"I'm sorry." He repeated.

* * *

"Wait, so Potter, Weasley, and Granger all attacked you unprovoked?" Draco was clenching his fists in anger. "Why?"

"I don't know, Draco. I jinxed them all in a few seconds. They knew they were no match for me. Even with all three of them together. So why would they try it?"

"Maybe they didn't know. They don't know about your studies lately. Or mine," he finished with a grin. "They're probably just pissed off at me, Lena; for what I did..."

He blushed. But she didn't believe that. It was the Golden Trio. They would be sure to mention something of that significance. Wouldn't they? Why would they take that out on her and not Draco?

Lena couldn't think of any reason why this would be happening. She'd been very careful not to make enemies, especially so close to her initiation.

Draco picked at his scone before tossing it back to the coffee table.

It was late. The fire was finally beginning to dim down, and everyone else had gone to sleep. Lena rested her feet up on the couch as she sat next to Draco, and put her head on his shoulder.

"I still don't understand. I even helped Granger."

Lena winced, and she knew it was a reminder of the torture she had gone through at Granger's expense. She wouldn't make the same mistake again, the ungrateful bitch.

Draco shifted until he was facing her, blocking the light from the fire from her eyes. He moved forward and pressed his lips against hers for a second. He pulled away, and stood.

"Good night, Lena," he said.

"Night, Draco," she replied, but she didn't follow suit. She couldn't sleep. Her thoughts would keep her awake.

 _Why did they do that? Why did they attack me? Who provoked them against me?_

* * *

"You're not trying hard enough, Lena."

"I'm using all my strength, _Tom,_ " she hissed, but he ignored her.

"Try harder, Lena. One, Two, Thre-"

" _Necropellius Maxima!"_

Her tip glowed for a second over the skeleton, but the dead animal did not rise, once again. Tom blasted a spell at the lamp and the room went dark. He growled in anger.

"How many times must I tell you..." He hissed through the darkness in her ear, "...that you must have a steady hand while you are doing this?"

Lena's eyes shot down and she didn't reply.

He smacked the back of her head and she winced in pain.

"Again."

 _I miss Severus' lessons._

Tom smacked her again.


	36. Chapter 36

Thirty-Six

"So, let me get this right," Draco began as he took a seat in the Quidditch pitches. "Granger is sleeping with Snape?

Lena nodded.

Draco pretended to dry heave. "Ew." He looked away from her for a second and she took advantage of his silence.

"We have a lot to do, Draco. You haven't learned nearly enough to survive your tasks..."

"Ey, you act so smart, but you're younger than me, remember?" He pushed her playfully on her shoulder, cooing the girl to fight back. Lena giggled and shied away. Draco leapt at her, imprisoning her in his arms beneath him on the grass. He placed his arms around her and pulled her back upwards in a hug. Lena was just thankful she could move without pain encasing her entire body.

"I've missed you so much," he said solemnly.

Her gaze shot downwards and she looked away, towards the Quiddich hoops. The Hufflepuffs were practicing for Quidditch season, but there was no hope for them, Lena admitted sadly.

"What else has been going on?" he asked.

"I've told you most of it, everything important," she said defensively. She was thinking about Tom.

Guilt rushed through her body and clogged her throat. She wanted to get away from Draco, but he had somehow managed to snake her hand in his while she hadn't been looking. She tried to swallow the clump but failed miserably.

"I've gotta go, Draco," she choked quietly and pulled herself away from him. Walking as quickly as she could without running back to her dormitory.

Lena bumped into someone as she walked through the halls. She pushed through the crowd but somebody grabbed her shoulder.

"Watch it, Yavari," Potter growled.

The girl fumbled for her wand, but Potter had the element of surprise. "Perificus Totalus," he whispered beneath his breath. But as she saw the words form on his lips, she collapsed into his body. He smoothly pulled her into an empty classroom without anybody even slipping the two of them a glimpse.

Potter threw her on the floor. Lena tried to scream, but she couldn't move a single muscle in her body. Except for her eyes.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," Potter began. "You're up to something, Yavari." He paused and turned his back to her. His breathing was heavy. "I hate you. All of you. You think you're better than everyone else because of your family tree?"

He spat at her. Lena wished her gag reflex would work as the gooey mess landed on her cheek.

"You walk around saying 'mudblood' like it's normal, or polite in civil conversation..."

He continued to pace.

"I need you to fill in a few pieces of this puzzle for me, Yavari."

He fired the counter curse, but fired a silencing spell at her mouth. "Oh! Don't scream." Potter laughed, tossing his head back in appreciation his own conceited brilliance.

He pulled out a vile of clear liquid.

 _Veritaserum._

"You know what this is, don't you?" he smiled widely. He kneeled down until he face was an inch from hers. "Your loudest scream won't even be a whisper."

He dropped several drops of the truth serum into her mouth. "So tell me," he continued, "What exactly are you doing, Lena Yavari-"

The door to the classroom slammed open. Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle strode in.

"Furnunculus!" Draco shouted at Potter. Boils sprouted all over his body and he crippled over in pain.

Draco muttered the counter curse for Lena, and she rose to her feet. She immediately waved a wand at her face to clean off the spit. She waved her wand to clean it a second time and it still felt spoiled.

"Another time, then, Potter. I have matters to attend to."

Draco dragged Lena out of the room before she could shoot anymore curses at Potter, and then dragged her out of the school until they were on the front lawn of the school. Crabbe and Goyle followed loyally. Draco produced Lena's cloak and her magically extended purse.

"We have things to do, Lena, and not much time to talk about it. So let's get going, okay?"

Lena nodded and looked back at Crabbe and Goyle, who were starting to look more like body-guards.

Suddenly, the girl stopped.

"What are we doing, Draco?" she demanded.

Draco looked back at her, frustrated. He grabbed her wrist and forced her to follow. She squealed.

"Draco, you're hurting me!"

He stopped suddenly, loosening his grip, but didn't let go of her wrist. He moved his head to her ear. "Shut up, Lena."

It was a threat. Don't make him angry.

Lena trotted along next to him. She had to run to keep up, he was so tall, his legs so long, his strides so extended. Each step was a new level of torturous pain.

Under the dark cover the Forbidden forest, Crabbe and Goyle stopped walking and Draco did as well. He pushed Lena into a tree and began to kiss her passionately. The two goons simply turned their backs on the situation.

Tears were welling up in Lena's eyes. All of the pain that Tom had been causing her lately still plagued her body constantly, and Draco pushing her into a tree didn't help. She pushed Draco away slowly and looked in his eyes for a moment, pleading for him to stop.

He did, surprisingly.

She found herself glancing at Crabbe and Goyle but their backs were still turned and they weren't looking at Draco and Lena.

"What?" He demanded after a moment.

"My back hurts," she whispered breathlessly so the goons couldn't hear.

Draco smiled and wrapped his arms around her back, caging her in his arms, and kissing her more deeply, gently rubbing her back with his large, warm hands. She flinched ever so slightly as he went over every scar, so slightly that she wasn't sure if he noticed. He hugged her for a few more minutes, before explaining that his parents had told him to meet in Hogsmeade. Lena nodded and he took her hand as it hung numbly at her side, dragging her back towards Hogwarts. For some reason, perhaps noticing Lena's uncomfortably fast pace to keep up with him, he walked slower. The only warm part of Lena was the hand Draco held.

Finally, they stopped at the Slytherin broom cabinet.

"Nah uh..." Lena began, backing away.

"Hence," Draco paused, "Crabbe and Goyle." At the exact moment he said their names, they grabbed either of her arms. "I thought you might need a little convincing."

"What the fuck, Draco?!" But he didn't answer. She struggled to get away from Crabbe and Goyle's grip, but they were as strong as they were dumb.

"Are you blind, Lena?" Draco started. He nodded at the two bullies behind her to let her go. Lena was taken aback, what was he saying to her? He pushed a strand of hair from her face and held her chin so that she could not look away.

"You may be brilliant, but while you disappear for hours on end to heaven knows where, things are happening all around this school. Potter-"

"Potter has his little army he's training up, the bunch of gits...Umbridge is casually taking over Hogwarts and overall dumbing down the population of the school, while keeping a group of Slytherins to do her dirty work; which, you are at the top of...The Order of the Phoenix is trying its so very hardest to come back," Lena batted her eyelashes in horror at the trivial statement, she removed her frown before she continued, "But they know that the Dark Lord is aware of them."

"I guess you do pay attention. A little."

Lena scowled at him and waited for his explanation.

"We must go to speak with him, Lena. The Dark Lord. He is expecting us, he wants an update on the happenings at Hogwarts."

 _He has a better idea of what's going on at Hogwarts than you know, Draco,_ Lena mused to herself.

Draco unlocked the storage closet and pushed a Nimbus 2001 at her.

She scuffed and looked at it with degrading eyes.

Withdrawing her wand, "Accio broom!"

A broom whizzed out from a dungeon window.

"Whoa!" Crabbe began, "That hasn't even been released yet. A Firebolt V5!"

"Where did you get that?" Draco held an odd annoyance in his tone.

"A gift from my mother and father for my birthday. They think I love flying." Lena laughed aloud at the ridiculous lie she had kept with her parents.

"Your birthday isn't until August," Draco muttered, but Lena pretended not to hear him.

Lena felt her pulse speeding up as she realized that Crabbe and Goyle were mounting their brooms, and soon Lena would have to fly with them. Which was impossible. She couldn't fly, she didn't know how. She would fall.

She tried to breathe slowly. Her gaze dropped to the ground and Draco approached her.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

She knew he was asking because she had told him of her fear of heights. She felt queasy.

Lena nodded, but she began to blush furiously when she realized that even if she managed to get this broom off the ground, she would probably manage to fall off and break her hip, humiliating herself.

A sixteen-year-old witch not knowing how to fly in the wizarding world, was like a sixteen year old muggle not knowing how to swim.

Breathing slowly, she mounted the broomstick. She wished that her and Draco could fly together again, it would be less scary with his strong arms wrapped around her.

The broom lifted from the ground and she tried to will her feet to touch the ground again, but when she looked down, she was three feet off the ground, trailing Crabbe and Goyle by fifty or so feet.

She dropped back to the ground before she dared go any higher. Draco turned his broom around and landed smoothly next to her. She hadn't even noticed him watching her the entire time.

"Okay, princess." He straddled the broom behind her, his own broom flying back to the broom cabinet. She felt _him_ up against the small of her back. Everywhere he touched erupted with warmth, temperarily allieviating the constant shiver.

Her heart was pulsing faster than she wanted it too, but she couldn't control it. Forcing herself not to look down, she followed after Crabbe and Goyle, Draco behind her, his arms protecting her from falling.

City lights glowed beneath her and she knew that they were flying over the Scottish countryside. She braced herself and didn't allow the vomit to surface.

Draco wrapped himself closer to her and she felt a new eruption of butterflies in her stomach.

Lena's head was spinning, her vision was getting blurrier, she gripped the broom tighter until her knuckles turned white.

She couldn't breathe. She struggled to inhale, but the fast wind blowing by her seemed impossible to breathe in.

Everything went black.

* * *

The scent of lemon cleaning solution stung her nose as she inhaled. Her eyes snapped open and her body forward.

Hospital wing.

"Draco," she said as she saw him from the corner of her eye. "What happened?"

"You kind of just blacked out..."

Lena looked downward at her lap and held her hands together; she swallowed a lump in her throat, praying that the majority of her wounds had healed before she'd been looked at.

"Did you meet with the Dark Lord?" Lena asked Draco, blushing at the thought of the Dark Lord seeing her passed out.

"I'm so glad you're okay...that's an incredibly fast broom for a beginner, by the way..." He said smartly.

Lena smacked Draco on the shoulder and he pulled the girl into a hug. She crawled out of the hospital bed and into his lap. Pressing her face into his neck, she kissed him, and nipped lightly at him until he pushed her face so their mouths would meet.

She let him slip his tongue inside her mouth and kiss her passionately.

Checking out of the Hospital wing was incredibly difficult. Poppy did her best to keep the rare company she had. Also, she spent half an hour saying how cute Draco was and wondering if he was okay from the last time he was in.

"He's fine," Lena replied for him. She rolled her eyes as Draco gave the nurse a sad look and cringe of pain.

The girl dragged Draco away before he would be put back in hospital care. She headed toward the Great Hall, her hand clasped in his still. For some reason, she did not let go.

"Right." Draco said aloud.

"Wha-?" Lena began, but immediately followed his gaze to the Golden Trio.

"I've been meaning to deal with these three." Draco strode forward. "Fifty points each for standing around in the halls before classes begin. Granger, another fifty for being a mudblood."

"Why you foul-" Granger began in defense.

" _Densaugeo_ ," Lena spat quickly, and Granger's teeth grew out of control, and she collapsed to the ground, clutching her mouth, and trying to shout counter curses but she couldn't pronounce any words properly.

Potter and Weasley were too stupid to know the counter curse.

"Ah, now we're evened out," Draco noticed, inching towards the frightened bunch,.

" _Expelliarmus_!" Draco and Lena shouted at the same time, and the two wands shot to the ground in front of them.

"Let's see..." Lena said, approaching Potter and Weasley.

"Get away from us, Death Eaters!"

Lena scowled. "Do not speak to me. _Emorphius Arachnidia_!" Hundreds of bugs began to swarm out of boils forming on Potter and Weasley's skin. Weasley screamed as the hundreds of baby spiders exited endlessly out of the side of his face.

They screamed in fear on the ground in front of Draco and Lena.

Lena walked forward, and put her wand at Weaselbee's throat. "So tell me... Why did you attack me?"

"I- I- I DON'T KNOW, GET THESE THINGS OFF OF ME."

"Wrong answer."

She looked down pathetically.

"I wish I could find a worthy enemy," she mused.

"One day," Draco replied, holding out his hand expectantly for hers.

She looked in his eyes for a long second before accepting the offer, inhaling as the now familiar butterflies erupted as his fingers slid in between hers. walking away from the blood traitors easily with her own sense of hubris.

For the first time in a long time, everything actually felt... _right._

"You're going to leave them like that?" Goyle droned from behind.

"They're in no harm..." She laughed coldly, and it echoed throughout the corridor.

Draco pushed her against a wall and pressed his lips against hers, hard. She kissed back.


	37. Chapter 37

Thirty-Seven

"Detention, Miss Yavari."

McGonagall.

Lena spun around and looked at the professor. Behind her was Draco and his goons, casually taking points from Hufflepuff.

"For what?" Lena asked earnestly.

"Loitering."

"WHAT?"

"Ten points from Slytherin. You know, I really would expect better from someone like you. So brilliant, talented. Yet you squander your time away with these trouble-makers."

"Since when is loitering punishable?"

"Section 78, paragraph three, article four of our school constitution, of course..." Professor McGonagall passed by Draco as he took points for loitering from a younger Gryfinndor. The professor scuffed and hurried on.

The Trio did not stop pestering Lena. As if her last lesson wasn't enough, they continued to follow her around, either chanting some dreadful song about her, or shooting harmless curses. She ignored them. If she was caught dueling with other students she would be expelled. She couldn't risk that.

She felt it wasn't in their normal nature and she grew suspicious after a few more weeks of it.

"Tom," she said into the empty dormitory.

She waited a moment before she heard a hiss in reply.

"Yesssssss?"

"What is going on with Potter and his friends?"

"Why, for such a clever little girl, did it take you so long to ask? You know I'm here for you..."

Tom transfigured in front of her in a Hogwarts uniform, older and a different style than hers.

"What did you do to them?" she asked casually, not losing her cool at being called a little girl.

"Why... I'm not sure, but perhaps you'd better focus on Draco for now. He needs training desperately."

"Why don't you train him then? Master of Darkness and all?"

Tom was disappearing into a snake on the floor and hissed only one more thing:

"Because I didn't ask myself to."

Lena pouted and hurried to find Draco.

The sun was shining brightly down upon the Quidditch field. For some reason, she knew she'd find him here. He was always here.

He spiraled down from the sky as he saw her. He gave her an obnoxious kiss in front of the other watching Quidditch players. "What's up, baby?"

"They're under the control of the Dark Lord with Imperio." She smiled slightly at his endearment.

"Who?" Draco shook his head, "The Trio?" Draco laughed. "Probably not by the Dark Lord."

"I dunno, maybe just Potter. But they definitely are," she replied.

"How would you know?" he asked hesitantly. Draco knew something he wasn't telling her.

Lena didn't answer, she watched the other boys practice, enjoying the heat from the sun and the coming spring.

"You know," Draco continued, "The End of the Year Ball is soon... Are you..." He hesitated. She felt the topic change.

"Sure, Draco, if it makes you happy. And as long as you finish your training before then."

"We have two months..." He said doubtfully.

"Get it done or you won't have the opportunity this summer."

Draco nodded at her sudden serious attitude.

"Every Saturday, meet me in the forest at nine. At the end of the month, you will kill someone."

Draco's mouth opened slightly at her demands.

Her expression remained stone cold. "I'm sorry Draco, but believe me, you'd rather have the soul-splitting out of the way before your tasks. It's rather painful," she said glumly. "My first kill." She whispered aloud, thinking of Blaise's eyes.

"What?" Draco muttered. He had become distracted by the practice game of Quidditch.

"See you tonight, Draco."

Draco looked after Lena as she backed away, confused, but soon brought himself back into the game.

"Oy, Draco, keep your girlfriend off the field unless she's gonna play!"

Draco scowled but didn't reply.

 _Girlfriend,_ thought Lena euphorically.

* * *

The days grew longer and hotter, and the nights seemed to last forever. It almost seemed as though Draco was trying to advance slowly.

She taught him the same way Tom had taught her, without the physical torture, of course...

And soon, It was the end of April.

Lena had ordered a beautiful gown from a company in Italy that she commonly ordered from. It was long and bunched up in all the right places, adding at least 30 pounds to the slender girl.

She twirled in front of the mirror and a million diamonds and emeralds glimmered, matching the expensive bottle-green material of the gown.

Pansy entered at the perfect timing, in her drab blue pillowcase. She scowled at Lena, she couldn't hide the jealous look as she hurried into the bathroom.

Lena's shoes were 4 inch high stilettos, embroidered with diamonds and emeralds as well. Her hair was worn long and curly over her shoulders, with just a small amount tied into a beautiful bun.

She spun around again and made Draco wait another twenty minutes as she dilly-dallied around in her dormitory.

She slowly opened the door and glided down the stairs graciously.

Draco's eyes widened as he extended his arm and guided the girl to the ball.

He fastened a white rose corsage to her wrist and gave her a peck on the cheek.

Arriving fashionably late wasn't normally Lena's thing, however...

"Lena Yavari, and her escort, Draco Malfoy."

Everyone turned to the entrance of the great hall.

Many of the girls gasped at Lena's beautiful gown, and suddenly Lena was crowded with questions.

"Where did you get it?"

"It's so beautiful."

"Can I touch it-"

"Please, restrain yourselves from touching me," Lena said as politely as she could with a scowl on her face.

Draco whirled her onto the dance floor and hogged the attention of everyone in the Great Hall for a few minutes longer.

"You're beautiful, Lena." He whispered into her ear.

Draco was wearing a snazzy dark green tux, that paired with her dress well. His hair was slicked back. She wouldn't dare say it, but she preferred it all messy.

But hey, she preferred herself in simple robes or jeans and ballet flats; tonight was different. Magical.

The last bit of being a teenager for her, and possibly for Draco.

She dragged herself from her thoughts and put her mind on Draco for the rest of the night.

* * *

"Tonight is the night."

It was a week after the ball.

"Yes, Draco, as I have said before."

"Lena, who exactly am I going to kill?"

"Now that, I cannot tell you."

"I hope its Weasley," he sneered.

Lena rolled her eyes and fastened the gold snake clasp of her cloak around her neck.

Draco was doing the same.

Lena wore skinny jeans and a plain black t-shirt.

The two snuck out and into the forest, hidden under Draco's new invisibility cloak. His parents had gotten him another early Death Eater present.

"You know," he said smuggly, "It's nice being pureblood."

"You can say that again."

"It's nice being pureblood."

Lena rolled her eyes and continued until they were in the clearing.

"Well?" He asked calmly, looking around. "Who must I kill?"

Lena stepped forward.

There was a long silence.

"Me."

Draco swished his wand and laughed. "Okay, now really."

Lena walked to the edge of the clearing and pulled the muggle out of the bushes. She had brought him there an hour ago from a pub in London. It had taken the girl almost 45 minutes to decide between the many ongoing people. She finally landed on this guy. Who seemed to live in a box, literally. The fool was so hopeless, Lena was sure she was doing him a favor.

Draco was hesitating more now as he faced the man he was to kill.

The man was under Imperio, of course, as he stood blankly before Draco.

Lena watched Draco's lip twitch and his eyes scan the man for almost ten minutes before she interfered.

"You cannot hesitate in front of the Dark Lord, Draco, it is a mark of bad service-"

"Avada Kadavra!"

And before she knew it, both of the men were on the ground. Draco kneeled clutching his chest.

"What is this?" he said through clenched teeth.

"It's the worst pain you'll ever feel in your life. The power you've released from your wand, with such dark passion, has driven a wedge between your soul. The more you kill, the less it hurts, supposedly. However, it is most necessary to get this out of the way before next month."

Draco nodded in understanding. Lena let him struggle through it on his own, giving him his privacy. A half an hour later, they were walking back up to the castle, Draco still crippled over slightly.

"I'm sorry, Lena."

Lena looked over. This was odd, Draco never apologizes.

"For what?" she asked with genuine curiosity.

"For not giving you a choice."

"What do you mean?"

His eyes said the unspoken words for him.

Blaise.


	38. Chapter 38

Thirty-Eight

In less than an hour, Draco had grown up more than in his entire life. He now understood the meaning of life and death, and the feeling inside yourself when you cause the death of someone you love. Or even someone you don't love. It didn't matter, it still hurt, both physically and mentally.

Lena stopped the lessons after that night. Draco was ready. And spent most of his time in his dormitory, recovering. Lena rarely saw him again until the last days of school, at the feast, where he sat next to her and Goyle.

Her thoughts drifted away from the meal.

 _Who is putting the Golden Trio under Imperio?_

 _If not the Dark Lord, then who?_

Someone probed her mind, she withdrew herself and protected her thoughts.

Snape smiled slowly from across the room.

 _No..impossible._

Lena suddenly knew who had been putting them under the curse.

Severus Snape.

* * *

"I know you've been a little bored lately, Lena, but think about it. You know the guy. Why would Professor Snape Imperio Potter and his little fairies?"

"I don't know..."

"How about this? They're not under a curse, they're just a load of bloody idiots..." Draco muttered the last part and began to walk away from her.

She began to stop him-

"No, Lena. I have Divination. And we have the OWLs coming up in a week. Have you bothered to study?"

Lena shook her head, however, she wasn't worried about the examinations. She had learned so much more in the last year than in all her years at Hogwarts and who cared about some historical event that had happened six hundred years ago, or some pointless potion, or _Divination._

Draco, on the other hand, seemed genuinely worried.

"Babe-" Lena caught herself, not in time though; Draco smirked. "Draco, you don't need to worry about the OWLs. They're easier than they make it sound."

Draco shrugged and walked away without bothering to give her a kiss, hurrying up the stairs to Divination.

Lena headed off to Advanced Potions Level II.

There was only three other students in the class with Lena. Granger, Nott, and Daphne Greengrass.

Lena took her own table.

Nott paired up with Daphne quickly, leaving Granger alone.

"Okay, okay, settle down class..." Snape looked around. Nobody was talking. "Right, then, lets get started."

Lena zoned out and looked down at a Dark Arts book. She was in the corner furthest away from everybody. She opened her book and began to read.

She whipped up the Potion Snape assigned carelessly, worth maybe a B, possibly a C.

Lena got Excellent scores on her potion as she walked out. Nott dragged behind her saying that if he had done that he would have gotten a T.

'You wouldn't have, and you know it. Severus would never give either of us a Troll score unless it was utterly terrible."

Lena rolled her eyes and sped away from the boy.

Every door she passed, she swore she saw a snake, curing into the framework, slithering along the walls.

She had Draco in her next class and she couldn't control the guilt she was feeling in her heart, it clogged up her entire body and she couldn't function correctly. Every time she was around Draco she just wanted to admit to him what had been going on for the last few months. But she couldn't.

She wasn't sure why she felt so mortified about herself and Tom. But she knew that Draco wouldn't believe anything she said about it. A snake that comes out of pictures, and then rapes her? Not possible. And to top it all off, it's the Dark Lord.

She wondered if Tom would mind if she told anyone. Something told her he would. He had kept his position in the castle secret for so long, and even if it was only a figment of Tom Riddle, but what if it really was Lord Voldemort behind those eyes, controlling those actions?

She blushed hoping no one in particular saw her and headed to her least favorite class. Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Only a week more and then O.W.L.s and then she would be home-free.

Almost.

After she had her ceremony.

And completed her last task...

The coming weeks seemed to last forever. She flew through her O.W.L.s and walked out before anyone else. She sat out by the lake until she was joined by a certain blonde.

"Easy enough?" she cooed.

Draco grunted, he looked tired.

"Have you been up all night?"

"Couldn't sleep...Just been a lot of.."

"Bad dreams?" Lena finished for him, lying back.

He nodded, resting on his elbow.

"Normal, I suppose. It was little more than a week ago that you killed someone for the first time, I know it's stressful."

Draco didn't say anything else, just laid next to her in the grass, stroking her long blonde hair behind her ear.

Lena's mind clouded with fear and anxiety as she thought of her own task. What would the Dark Lord have her do now? Certainly he wouldn't make her kill another? Not after the heart-wrenching thing that happened during her last task...

* * *

It was a little after one in the morning, and Lena was still lying awake in bed. She thought of Draco, and looked around for Tom. He wasn't around.

She crept down the stairs and then up to the boy's dormitories. She found Draco's door unlocked and curled up next to him in his gigantic bed. Her bed was a third the size. The advantages to being a Prefect...

Lena scowled and moved her body up against him. He moved for a second and then grunted, opening his eyes.

"I love waking up to someone so beautiful."

"I can't sleep," she whispered, looking over at Nott, asleep in his bed. He shifted his body and pulled her closer to him.

He began pushing his hips into hers, slowly and gently, lazily. He rubbed the inside of her thigh and she gasped. Perhaps too loudly, because Nott stirred in his sleep.

Draco pressed his finger to his lips with a light, "Shhh..."

He put himself on top of her and held her arms behind her head, kissing her fiercely; he waved his wand and the fancy curtains around his bed posts closed noiselessly. Lena responded to him kissing her and felt vulnerable as he began to pull her nightgown up, touching with his fingers, closer and closer to her.

She inhaled deeply and tried to remain quiet. She squealed and his finger moved inside of her. Draco covered her mouth with the hand that had been holding her wrists. He picked up his wand again and thick, soft velvet cord coiled around Lena's wrists.

He continued to move his finger in and out of her, teasing her until she couldn't stand it anymore, and with each gasp he would press a little more firmly onto her mouth. She bit his hand playfully, and challenged him fiercely with her eyes.

He adjusted his boxers quickly and slowly brought himself so that he touched her with his dick.

She couldn't resist the pleasure as his almost completely naked body pressed against hers. He pushed her nightgown up over her head, while she tried to wiggle to get him inside of her, but it was an impossible feat, and only left Draco smirking with joy, as he raised himself to look at her.

"This summer, I want everyone to hear you scream. But for now, this will have to do." He put a charm around them. And moved his hand from her mouth. He kissed her lips lightly, and left a trail of kisses down her neck and to each of her breasts, where he stopped for a minute to suck her nipples and play with his tongue.

His trail of kisses continued down the crevice between her ribs and over her belly button until she squealed, realizing how far he had gotten. She lifted her head and looked down at him. He was kissing her everywhere and her head tilted back in pleasure and embarrassment as his tongue playfully began to tease her even more so, and just barely let tip of his tongue enter her and she squealed delightfully again. When Draco had his fill of smirking at her every moan, he moved himself so his lower half was over Lena's head.

She knew what she was supposed to do, but she was embarrassed because she'd never done it before. Reminding herself that she was with Draco, she regained a level of comfort and moved her head up, beginning to lick the tip. She purposely began to tease Draco, never letter him go far enough into her mouth, she pulled away as he tried to push himself in deeper. Giving up, he moved himself back so he was facing her. He glared at her, and then smirked evilly. Lena drew a careful breath.

He entered her slowly and then withdrew several times, each time going only a little further in.. And then slammed into her.

The bed banged loudly against the wall, and Lena glanced through the edge of the curtain to see Draco's roommate, but Nott didn't move.

She shivered with pleasure as he continued. She raised her hips to meet him rhythmically, until they were both panting for breath.

It was better than it had ever been with Tom. It felt...

Genuine.

Draco continued until Lena was whimpering with pleasure beneath Draco's hand in his attempt to silence her, and allowed himself to finish. The velvet cords released, and she breathed deeply and tried to catch her breath, cuddling up against him as he collapsed next to her.

"I love you, Lena."

"I love you, Draco," she replied breathlessly, and he smirked with satisfaction at himself.

Lena scowled and raised her eyebrows. He was watching her closely.

"I love virgins."

Lena looked at him questionably and felt the guilt again.

She wondered if it even had counted as sex. This had been so much better than the times with Tom. Hundreds of times better. Thousands of times better.

All of a sudden, she spilled out her secret, telling Draco everything that she had kept from him. It took her almost twenty minutes to finish before Draco stopped her.

"I don't know exactly what happened, but I definitely just popped your cherry. Whatever happened with him..." Draco blushed, a fury came over his face, "We'll forget about for now, and I feel confident saying that whatever happened with him was merely magical illusions, et cetera.

Lena looked down at the blood coming from her. She waved her wand and felt immediately abashed that she hadn't noticed sooner.

"It's okay, baby," he whispered in her ear, kissing her forehead, washing away her embarrassment. "Like I said, virgins are my favorite."

Lena frowned.

"Exactly how many girls have you been with?" She asked, realizing that he definitely had had some practice.

Draco felt the tension and refused to answer for a minute. "Four..Five."

"FIVE?" she yelled, louder than she meant to.

"I couldn't wait for you forever, baby. I was horny."

Just like Draco, to brush it off and act like it was nothing. When she had just found out that all the sex she thought she'd been having was actually fake.

Lena groaned.

Draco pulled Lena closer to him, even as she tried to squirm away, she couldn't fight his strength.

He kissed her passionately and Lena let him, barely kissing back as she fell into a deep sleep, finally filled with good dreams.


	39. Chapter 39

Thirty-Nine

Today was the day.

And Lena was wearing her nicest robes and cloak. A dark emerald green. Draco had left school early yesterday, while Lena's parents made her wait until today. The goodbye from the day before was fading away quickly, though Lena still touched her lips softly at the thought of Draco's kisses.

She already missed him and wanted to see him again, but she knew she'd have to wait until her task was over. He'd definitely be there...right?

She breathed deeply and her heart was pounding through her chest.

She descended the stairs slowly, her trunk and all her belongings floating behind her.

Most of the students had left yesterday. Lena went outside and took long strides to make the short walk to the train station go faster. She passed by the threshals with disgust. Ever since she had seen them for her first time, she had avoided the creepy things.

The train seemed to go ten miles an hour. And the lady with the candy cart stopped by the train compartment hesitantly.

"Anything off the trolley, dear?"

Lena shook her head and didn't respond. The door slid closed and Lena opened a book to read.

Finally, the horn was blowing and the wheels screeching, Lena stood and walked toward an exit. She stepped down when the train was almost at a stop.

The butler from their manor waited motionlessly, when he saw her, he charmed her trunks as they walked to the SUV.

She hopped in the back and let her mind drift away.

* * *

It was only a few hours away now. She would be performing her last task and being initiated.

Mother and Father were in the sitting room when she arrived. Father was yelling at the house elf for letting his coffee cool too much before bringing it to him.

The elf whimpered and with a CRACK, was gone.

"Lena," Mother said, coming toward her.

"We are so proud of you," her father said nonchalantly, looking over.

Lena smiled and gave hugs to both of them.

They grabbed their bags while Lena freshened up, and then they left to the meeting.

Lena's heart only pounded faster, harder as they approached the forest.

She could see the group from a couple hundred feet away. She knew that muggle charms would help deflect muggles, but not entirely prevent them from straying into the clearing.

Taking her place at the edge of the clearing, the Dark Lord began.

"Today, a young girl becomes a woman. Today, our numbers increase in strength. Today, we get closer to achieving our goal."

The Death Eaters cheered. An odd breeze blew against Lena's back and she shivered with the chills. She dared not look behind her.

She tried to breathe slowly but only found herself gasping for more breath.

 _I can't believe I'm here_ , the girl thought to herself. This year has passed so quickly.

The Dark Lord spoke for a minute longer, but Lena could tell that he was not the center of attention right now.

She was.

"Now, to begin. Lena, we are going to blindfold you, and bring you to the location of your task. Up until now, you have showed me your obedience, your intelligence. Now, you must show me your loyalty."

Lena nodded, and ignored the feeling when she felt she needed to respond.

The Dark Lord cast a spell over her eyes, and she was led deeper into the forest. She knew that she was going to trip if she wasn't careful. They were practically dragging her along, as though she were a prisoner.

Finally, the party came to a stand-still.

"Now, Lena, this is your chance to shine, to show me your true loyalty."

Suddenly, she could see, the dark forest around her, illuminated by the large fire behind her. And facing her-

Lena gasped and felt tears in her eyes.

 _No.._

She wasn't sure if she was telling herself not to cry, and testing to see if this was real.

 _Please tell me this is some sick, twisted nightmare._

"Now is your chance, Lena," the Dark Lord's lips moved again.

How could she choose?

She looked around her at the other Death Eaters, who also were wide-eyed in shock.

Lena turned back to the two men in front of her.

The Dark Lord himself...

...or Draco.

Draco's gray eyes pleaded with her, begged her to choose the other man. There was a scowl forming on the Dark Lord's face. She was taking too long.

She felt as though it had only been a few seconds since the blindfold had been removed.

 _You can do this, Lena,_ she told herself.

But she couldn't. She couldn't kill both of the men she loved in the same year.

Lena frowned, and closed her eyes until she could barely see.

She extended her arm, pointed at blonde hair, and screamed, louder than she had ever before.

"AVADA KADAVRA!"

Draco's body dropped to the ground and Lena spun running to the edge of the clearing.

Every Death Eater disappeared until it was only Draco and the Dark Lord behind her.

The Dark Lord was smiling. She didn't need to look back to see that. The Dark Lord was laughing at her torment.

She stopped before she was out of sight, looking back regretfully.

The group of Death Eaters had dispersed. Only the Dark Lord stood in the clearing now, touching Draco's cold face gently.

And then..

 _CRACK._

And then the two of them were gone.

* * *

It had been two days.

Lena hadn't eaten, hadn't slept, and refused to leave her room. There was a buffet on her dresser that the elves managed to sneak in while she wasn't looking.

There was a knock.

"Enter." Lena said glumly.

"Lena." It was her mother, who sat at the edge of the bed. Lena stayed with her back to her. "You must make sacrifices in this business. I know it's hard, but we must all prove our loyalty some way or another. Draco was a great man..."

Her mother's face was stone cold and Lena was pulling the tears back inside her, locking up her emotions.

"This isn't just some sick joke?"

Lena's mind returned to the night in the clearing.

Draco's face had not changed.

She searched desperately for any circumstance where the Dark Lord could have fooled her.

"It almost seems as though the Dark Lord is angry with you, Lena..." Her mother's voice trailed off, and eventually she left the room.

The other Death Eaters had disappeared too quickly after the death to know for sure if it had changed. Only the Dark Lord knew if Draco were alive or dead.

And he did appearate with the body. Wasn't that a possibility? That he had disappeared with the body before Lena could see it change back into the muggle that it really was?

The hope inside of Lena was the only thing that kept her going.

Tonight was her initiation ceremony, which would be her, alone, with the Dark Lord as he gives her the mark. Her very own Dark Mark. It was hard not to be excited. Plus, she would have the opportunity to see if Draco was really dead, asking the Dark Lord himself.

After the ceremony, there would be a reception of killing muggles at some camping site not too far out.

Time was slow and cruel, and every minute she found herself thinking of Draco, what had really happened to him, why he hadn't sent her an owl yet, or come to see her himself.

Lena couldn't let go of that hope inside her as she strolled casually out of her manor, with a stone cold expression on her face.

She went to the edge of her property and appearated to Godric's Hollow. She entered a partially broken down house and found the Dark Lord waiting for her by a roaring fire.

She sat next to him.

He took her arm and began to cast the Dark Mark on her. It would take several painful hours to finish.

"Is he really gone?" she whispered.

She felt like she knew the Dark Lord, after spending so much time with Tom.

"So you met me in my younger days..."

He was reading her thoughts. She knew that he had known long before just now.

"Yes...yes...I did. You see..." He paused, seemed to decide something, and continued, "You see, here in my old age, I have little desire to engage in physical intercourse."

Lena raised her eyebrows, shocked that he was telling her something so intimate.

"However, sometimes, it's nice to let my mind wander..." She didn't need to ask any questions, he already knew her thoughts. "Yes, I put part of myself in that painting so many years ago. And it's hard not to find you attractive, Lena." He stroked her cheek. "I want you to satisfy me, always."

Lena was shocked the Dark Lord was so sexual.

He grabbed her hand and put it between his legs. She felt it pulsing, and she tried to withdraw her arm from his grasp as she backed away.

The Dark Lord was not as attractive now as he had been fifty or more years ago.

"If you prefer..." He suddenly changed into the man she knew, Tom.

"This isn't possible. You are Lord Voldemort, in the present."

"Let me explain. I am allowing you to see what you want right now. If anyone else were to walk in that I wasn't creating this image of myself in their mind, they would see me as I really am. Ugly, as you say."

"I don't want to have sex with you anymore," Lena said hesitantly. She closed her eyes as he smacked her, hard, across the face.

She felt a tear escape and wished Draco was still alive to save her.

"You used to think you wanted to be my Queen. Sit next to me on the seat of power."

"I did."

"You love Draco, I know. And I'm sure he'll agree to our little arrangement."

"So he's still alive?!" she asked quickly, hopefully.

The Dark Lord didn't reply.

He grabbed her arm and dragged her into a bedroom, where snakes slithered up and around her appendages, turning into to coarse rope as they tied her to the bed uncomfortably.

The Dark Lord ripped her clothes off with a silent spell and Lena felt the tear escaping as she felt more and more vulnerable. He fingered the wound on her inner thigh that he had made-that his form as a snake had made. It had almost fully closed, but as he touched it more, she felt it reopening with searing hot needles.

"This is how I like it to be," he whispered gruffly as he moved to enter her, wiping the tear with a finger. "I like it when you cry. How about this little agreement instead? This will be our last time."

Her arm was searing with pain as the Dark Mark forged itself into her skin. She could hear the light sizzle of her flesh burning away on her arm and leg, smell the burning flesh.

She screamed out in pain as he pushed into her, deeper, and deeper.

He covered her mouth and she bit his hand. He smiled as he looked at the drawn blood on his hand. He pushed in harder, smacking her with his bloody hand.

She was crying in pain until he finally came, releasing himself inside of her and withdrew.

It was only pain, no pleasure. Nothing like the first time with Tom. She was just horribly terrified knowing that she had just been raped. She knew deep inside, that this had been more than the other times, with Tom; this was different. Real.

Of course, her experience with Draco was untouchable in comparison to all of the times with Tom or the Dark Lord himself. The thought of Draco only dragged her deeper into her depression, anything to keep her away from the searing pain as the tears in her eyes were welling up uncontrollably, praying for the numbness to take over and take away her pain.

She wished for Draco again but knew it was hopeless.

The Dark Lord wouldn't tell her if he was alive or dead.

Suddenly the thought entered her mind and she knew who had put it there. It sounded so true, it made so much sense.

Draco Malfoy is dead.


	40. Chapter 40

Forty

"You have proven to me your obedience, through not opening a package, despite a spell that made you feel obligated to.

"You have proven to me your intelligence and decision-making through killing the person of lesser importance in your life.

"You have proven to me your loyalty, through killing the one man you ever really loved."

The Dark Lord winked.

 _Besides me, of course,_ he whispered in her mind.

"And now, Lena Yavari, you have proven yourself more than worthy to be a Death Eater, among the group of my greatest followers."

Her mind was blank.

She feasted and drank till she was belligerent, and killed countless muggles with pleasure, laughing coldly into the night; a laugh that didn't belong to her. And as she shouted the spells, she realized the voice didn't belong to her either. Or did it?

Killing and drinking and eating the pain away.

She wondered if it had all been worth it. To lose Draco and Blaise in her very own struggle to become a Death Eater.

Yes. It had been worth it, she decided. It was everything she always wanted. She be a part of something more important than herself. To support her people and guide them to better days.

But she knew in her heart that she could never love another man as much as she had loved Draco. Her best friend.

She laughed aloud at a few of their memories, feeling guilty for even thinking of the good times.

She was alone in her room now, unable to move about with stability, she'd already broken two vases and a lamp on the way up the stairs. And tears ran down from her eyes, freely now.

She glanced out of the window at the full moon. It almost looked orange, and several times larger than it should have been.

And despite the thought that the Dark Lord had put in her mind, somewhere in her heart, she knew.

Draco Malfoy was alive.


End file.
